Wheels come off Beeb Strictly spin-off

He may have won the show but he’s not dancing with delight. BBC3’s Dancing on Wheels champion James O’Shea has hit the headlines claiming that the programme’s makers discriminated against its disabled contestants. Cathy Reay tries to get to the truth behind his allegations

It is as if their view was, ‘They’re not worth it so we can treat them like ****.’ It’s clear discrimination.” Those were the damning words of 31-year-old James O’Shea, a wheelchair-user from Hertfordshire who beat six other disabled contestants to win BBC3’s Strictly Come Dancing spin-off earlier this year.

The show, which paired previously inexperienced disabled wheelchair dancers with celebrity partners and which had been heavily hyped by the BBC prior to broadcasting in March, was lauded as a cutting-edge talent programme that would increase awareness of wheelchair dancing as a serious sport. A prize of representing the UK in the European Wheelchair Dance Sport Championships in Tel Aviv was awarded to James and his dancing partner, TV presenter and former Strictly dancer, Caroline Flack.

But his win didn’t pacify the reality TV star. Speaking to the Mail on Sunday (MoS) in the only interview the dancer has granted since the contest ended, James reveals that a member of the crew discriminated against him during filming. He says that a cameraman threatened: [I’m going to] “tape your arms together, throw you into the Thames so only your nose is just above the water and then push you down every couple of minutes until you’ve learned your lesson”.

James also alleges that the BBC and Fever Media, the independent production company commissioned to make the series, discriminated against the contestants by offering them less money than their celebrity dance partners. O’Shea claims that he had originally been offered £450 a week to appear on the show, but was actually given less than half of that.

He told the MoS, “I asked the producers if they could look at anyone and tell them they’re only worth £150 a week. I told them that I wanted at least double that amount for all the competitors. It makes no sense. They’re trying to make a TV show [that makes] a good portrayal of disabled people, yet they’re not going to pay them.”

Harry Lansdown, the BBC’s Commissioning Editor for Factual Entertainment who commissioned Dancing on Wheels, said that James’ comments disappointed him.

Speaking to Disability Now, he argued: “Comments made by the cameraman were not correctly reported. James received an apology from the cameraman who realised that, even in jest, his comments could be seen as upsetting or unprofessional.

“With regards to pay for the contributors, we strongly reject any suggestion that we treated the contestants in this show differently to those in any other factual entertainment programme. Neither James O’Shea nor any other of the wheelchair-users were ever offered £450 a week to appear in the show.”

Following our request for interviews with others of the show’s disabled contestants, the BBC said that they’d decided not to make them available for comment at the time of going to press. BBC3 currently has no plans to commission a further series of Dancing on Wheels.