Exclusive

Dancing On Ice’s Matt Evers defends Lisa George’s ‘tough working schedule’ on Corrie after she’s voted off

25 February 2020, 11:16

Matt Evers has revealed why he thinks Lisa George was eliminated from Dancing On Ice.

Coronation Street star Lisa George bid farewell to Dancing On Ice this week after narrowly missing out on a place in the semi final.

But now professional skater Matt Evers has defended the actress saying she had a disadvantage because of her tough working schedule filming for Corrie.

Speaking about the actress - who plays Beth Tinker - he said: “She started off really good but due to her work schedule with Coronation Street and travelling up and down the country - because they shoot in Manchester and we shoot in London - the other competitors in the show have caught up to her level.”

Touching on his own partner Ian ‘H’ Watkins, he continued: “It’s a matter of everybody has a natural plateau, we saw it with H, and these people will only get so good regardless of how far you come.

“Then it’s a matter of being clever with choreography and clever with characterisation to cover the fact they’re not going to start doing double jumps or doing things you’ll see in the olympics obviously.”

Lisa, 47, ended up in the bottom two with Libby Clegg, after receiving the lowest score for her Bridget Jones routine.

After being eliminated alongside her partner Tom Naylor, she said: "I'm the granny of the group!

"I'm made up I got this far. I've had so much fun. Thank you Tom!"

I’ve loved every single second of my time @dancingonice! When I was a little girl ice skating was my dream... 40 years later & I’ve finally got to live it! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your love, support & votes every week! What an experience!! 💙⛸ #dancingonice
— Lisa George (@LisaGeorgeActor) February 23, 2020

Libby made it through to the semi final along with magician Ben Hanlin, Joe Swash and Perri Kiely.

But the judges seemingly disagreed over a few of the routines, with John Barrowman and Ashley Banjo coming to blows over Libby’s routine.

Explaining why things are getting more intense on the ice, Matt, 42, told us: “I think the judges are clashing more as the weeks go on because they’re starting to nit pick because the closer you get to the final, the pickier they have to be.

“Sometimes a judge will see something another judge won’t. On the judges desk they have a monitor so they can watch it in case they’re facing the other direction.

“If you look down at that certain moment or look up you might miss a trick or a little bit of a wobble and I think that’s why they’re starting to go at each other because they’re really nitpicking.”

And as we head into the penultimate week, Matt also teased that things are set to get a lot more competitive.

“I think we start to see the real competitive spirit come out now,” he said, continuing: “They’re doing two numbers next week, one of them is their personal skate.

“They get to design it themselves, they get to pick the music, they get to pick the graphics the storyline and I think that in itself is something the celebs look forward to and then they obviously want to get to the final.

He added: “The horns will come out this week for sure with some of them.”

Dancing On Ice continues at 6pm on Sunday on ITV.