Strictly: Rose Ayling-Ellis discusses performing on the live tour

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Strictly Come Dancing’s first ever deaf contestant, Rose Ayling-Ellis, joined her colleagues in kicking off an action-packed tour earlier this week. Yet with 33 sequin-studded dates still to go, Rose has posted a touching snap giving a clue as to just how tired she is.

Not tired at all!

Rose Ayling-Ellis

The 27-year-old actress proved it’s a tough job breaking boundaries and challenging stigma and stereotypes about the deaf, as she was pictured alongside Maisie and Tilly, appearing to take a much-needed nap.

She cheekily captioned the group shut-eye photo: “Not tired at all.”

The rigorous routines began before the shows had so much as kicked off, with her dance partner Giovanni Pernice posting shots to Instagram of herself undertaking a gruelling training regime led by John Whaite.

Joking he was getting revenge on him for having worked Rose so hard during the 2021 competition, John had him lifting weights and doing press-ups while grimacing from the exertion.

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Labelling it as “payback” on Rose’s behalf, a grinning John had seen the work-out sessions documented in Giovanni’s Stories.

During one, he had bragged: “Just so you know that by the end of the tour, I’m going to look like this guy.

“He’s training me, today is the first day – he’s got some muscle hasn’t he?”

Besides putting herself through her paces in fitness too, Eastenders star Rose has also been campaigning for a world that is more inclusive for the deaf.

She was able to persuade Strictly bosses to hire a sign language interpreter for the tour, who will be projected onto large screens during performances, but she believes there is still more work to be done.

John made his loyalty to Rose’s struggle as a deaf woman only too clear when he earnestly declared that, if it hadn’t been for changes in society, she might not have had any kind of job at all.

“I was chatting to Rose on the day of the final in rehearsals and she made it quite clear that 20 years ago, a girl like her wouldn’t have even had a job,” he revealed during an interview on Good Morning Britain.

“That’s how far we’ve come and that’s how amazing she is to have broken down so many boundaries,” he continued.

“So she, for me, is the worthy winner and I knew she was going to win it from the very start.”

Meanwhile, during an interview with the Guardian, the girl who would jump up and dance in public as a child in spite of being deaf since birth, told of how she enjoyed confounding public stereotypes.

“Everyone’s going to be expecting a deaf person to dance really badly,” she reasoned.

She flashed a revenge smile before declaring: “I definitely proved a lot of people wrong.”

She added even if she hadn’t won the show, her presence as a deaf woman was in itself a win.

The statistics speak for themselves in proving that she has made a difference since her appearance on Strictly, a training company told the BBC that the numbers enrolling in a sign language course had increased by 2000 percent.

With so much accomplished and the promise of even more gains to come, it’s little wonder Rose – and her co-stars – are taking the time out for a much-needed snooze.

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