Story preview
Strictly Come Dancing 2026: Cach Mercer dealt harsh blow as judges tell him to ‘learn the rules’ in first live show
About this story
- Published
- Sep 27, 2026, 10:09 AM UTC
Continue reading on the publisher site for the full article.
Story preview
Continue reading on the publisher site for the full article.
Coverage
Tone
Context from Wikipedia on the organisations, people and places in this story.
British television series
Strictly Come Dancing is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. Each couple is scored by a panel of judges. The title of the show is an amalgamation of 1992 film Strictly Ballroom and long-running TV series Come Dancing. The format has been exported to 60 other countries under the title Dancing with the Stars, licensed by BBC Worldwide, and led to a modern dance-themed spin-off Strictly Dance Fever.
More on Wikipedia ↗English media personality (born 2001)
Cacherel Damani Mirjah Mercer is an English television personality, dancer and model. After appearing on the MTV reality series Are You the One? UK and amassing a following on TikTok, he won the twelfth series of Love Island in 2025 and is set to appear as a contestant on the twenty-fourth series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2026.
More on Wikipedia ↗Outlets covering it
8
in the last 3 days
First reported
37 hr. ago
7 outlets since
Countries
7 other outlets reported this story in the last 3 days.
Several Strictly Come Dancing viewers defended Cach Mercer after his first live Quickstep with Maddie Ingoldsby scored 20 points
What were the scores on Strictly Come Dancing? See all the scores and the leaderboard from the first live show of Strictly Come Dancing 2026.
Strictly Come Dancing’s class of 2026 made their dancefloor debuts in this week’s first live show and delivered one of the most surprising leaderboards the show