Strictly pros brought in to boost Cheryl’s flop show The Greatest Dancer

THE Greatest Dancer was meant to be Cheryl Tweedy’s big telly comeback – but bosses are now relying on Strictly Come Dancing pros to draw in viewers.

The BBC1 talent show had its lowest audience figures of four million on Saturday.

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Now it’s hoped the Strictly stars can create a buzz on the upcoming live episodes. And in another desperate move, Cheryl herself will dance with the professionals.

It comes as the show is losing out to rival ITV singing show The Voice and haemorrhaging viewers week-on-week.

A telly source said: “The ­Greatest Dancer has been panned by viewers and BBC bosses are banking on bringing in the Strictly professionals to help increase the hype and cross-pollinate the audience.

“Strictly is the biggest show on TV and bosses at the BBC know that.

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“Calls have gone out to all the agents of the professionals to see who is interested in dancing on the show in the coming weeks.”

A show spokesman said: “It has always been the case that Strictly dancers would perform on one of our live shows, along with lots of other special guests which we can’t wait for viewers to see.”

The news follows reports that Cheryl has tried to prevent the media from reporting her conviction for assaulting a toilet attendant in 2003 — despite writing about it in her autobiography.

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Lawyers acting for the star sent a legal letter to a newspaper insisting that any mention of the crime was a breach of the ­Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.

But opening up about the ­incident in her book Cheryl: My Story, she wrote: “Completely out of nowhere, I was hit in the face.

“I swear on my mother’s life that’s what happened... It was the toilet attendant who had hit me, and in confusion and self-defence I hit back instinctively.”

She must regret writing that...

READ ON FOR MORE OF SIMON BOYLE'S BIZARRE COLUMN

Olivia: 'I felt like I was 'ad'

OLIVIA Colman is the toast of Hollywood thanks to her role as Queen Anne in The Favourite.

But she believes her career was almost ruined before it began by a 2004 telly advert.

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She played a driver in the ad for AA car insurance, which she says has haunted her ever since.

And she claims she barely made any money from it because she took a one-off fee, known as a buyout, instead of being paid depending on how many times it was played.

Olivia said of the advert: “I thought they were going to run that for a week but they ran it for what felt like four times a day for a year. They ran it for a year ­having just given me a buyout, which is really annoying and I think I lost jobs because of it.”

Thankfully Olivia has now been nominated for Best Actress at next month’s Oscars – but she still struggles to deal with any criticism.

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Speaking in the first episode of David Tennant’s David Tennant Does A Podcast With..., she said: “I’m not on social media because I don’t think I’m very thick-skinned.

“On occasion I’ve read something that I shouldn’t have and I’ll stay awake – I’ll cry and I’ll go into a depression.

“I don’t know if they think you have no feeling, no nerve endings or you’re not real.

“I’m fortunate that it doesn’t happen often. But I don’t know how people cope.”

She’s doing pretty well ­without the likes of Twitter.

Cardi's porn to be wild

IF Cardi B wants to make her estranged rapper husband Offset jealous, she’s going about it the right way.

Cardi wore a leather leotard and knee-high boots on stage in Las Vegas on Saturday night, while performing at the AVN Awards – known as the Oscars of the US porn industry.

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And with her dance moves in this outfit, I’m sure her act was enough to shock even the nominees in the room.

Despite all of the buckles, she still managed a fairly quick change into a similarly provocative blue outfit.

Alongside an Instagram snap of her posing in it in a lift, she wrote: “I’m a little porn star today. Well, I’m a porn star whenever you want me to be.”

I’ll have to take her word for it.

bizbit

LIAM Hemsworth has spoken of his wedding to MILEY CYRUS for the first time. He said: “It was a really beautiful day with our immediate family and close friends. It’s wonderful – we’ve been together for the better part of ten years.”

Zacs all white to go nude

ZAC Efron had quite the makeover ahead of the Sundance Film Festival but viewers will see even more of him in his next film.

He has revealed he will go nude to play ­infamous serial killer Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile — although I doubt he will look any of those things.

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Speaking at Saturday’s event in Utah, where he debuted his bleached white hair, Zac said: “My parents were freaked out when I said, ‘I’m thinking about reading a script about Ted Bundy’.

“I spent a lot of time in prison, in an abandoned prison. That was my dressing room, I lived there for like two weeks, with no heat.”

And asked if he had stripped off again, as he did in 2016’s Dirty Grandpa, he added: “I did – nude scenes in the prison.”

I’m hoping there was a heater on set.

bizbit

AFTER the release of brilliant debut album Wild Silence, British four-piece country act The Wandering Hearts have released a deluxe version. The new collection, with seven new tracks, is out now.

Music win for Drake

DRAKE should stick to touring if he wants to make the big bucks.

He served as an executive producer on gun violence film Monsters And Men but the flick has flopped at the UK box office, taking just £8,440 last weekend.

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To put that into perspective, that’s the same amount as only 60 standing tickets for his forthcoming UK tour.

The film, about a black man killed by police, has been praised by critics but hasn’t had such a strong response from viewers.

And it was far behind the No1 film Glass, starring James McAvoy and Bruce Willis, which grossed £3,423,380 during the same period.

Drake is charging £140 entry for floor tickets to his Assassination Vacation gigs and will play 11 of them during March and April in Manchester, Birmingham and London.

The Canadian rapper will perform to more than 200,000 people during the UK tour, which includes six nights at the O2 Arena in the capital. For his first shows here in two years, he will be supported by Tory Lanez and Radio 1Xtra DJ Tiffany Calver.

A film of his concert would be far more lucrative.

The 40-year Madness

MADNESS are going all out for their 40th anniversary – announcing two huge shows and a book.

The band will play a special orchestrated gig at North London’s Kenwood House on June 15 and will bring back their House of Common festival on South London’s Clapham Common for a show on August 26.

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As well as new music, their book Before We Was We will be out on September 26, explaining the story behind their rise to fame in 1979.

Frontman Suggs said: “Forty years at the coalface of modern popular culture. But it’s not the endless achievements, the unforgettable memories – it’s the fact they’re even still alive.”

That really is worth celebrating.

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