Strictly Come Dancing
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 Strictly Ballroom, a 1992 film and the long-running 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. The Guinness World Records named Strictly as the world's most successful reality television format in 2010. The series was presented by Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly from its inception; Claudia Winkleman joined Daly as a lead presenter from the 2014 series, having hosted results shows in place of Forsyth since 2010. Forsyth continued to host special episodes with Daly until November 2015. Daly and Winkleman left the series in 2025, with the presenting line-up for 2026 yet to be announced.
The series has been broadcast live on BBC One since 15 May 2004, airing on Saturday evenings. From series 2 onwards, the show has been broadcast in the run up to Christmas. Results shows were originally broadcast live on Saturdays, and are currently pre-recorded and aired on Sunday evenings. With its high viewing figures, Strictly Come Dancing has become a significant programme for dancing on British television. Eighteen stand-alone Christmas specials and nineteen charity specials have also been produced.
Development
Producer Richard Hopkins, who had produced the first British series of Big Brother, unsuccessfully pitched the idea of a modern Come Dancing to the BBC under the title of Pro-Celebrity Dancing in 2003. Later, entertainment executive Fenia Vardanis also suggested reviving Come Dancing, so Jane Lush, the then head of BBC Entertainment, put Hopkins and Vardanis together to develop the show.Hopkins then called in Karen Smith, who had previously produced Comic Relief Does Fame Academy for BBC One and The Games for Channel 4, to help lead the development of the show and launch the series. Smith was the show-running Executive Producer of the first three series, and of sister show It Takes Two. She then became Creative Director of BBC Entertainment whilst still overseeing series 4 and 5.
Hopkins later took the format to America himself when the BBC dismissed the idea of selling it abroad, as they felt it was too British, establishing the format internationally as Dancing with the Stars.
The title is an amalgamation of the titles of the 1992 Australian film Strictly Ballroom and Come Dancing.
Format
The show is broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday evenings, with a results show originally following later on Saturday, also broadcast live. For series five, six and eight onwards, the results show is pre-recorded on Saturday and broadcast on Sunday evenings. The final results continued to be shown live on Saturdays, and were combined with the main show from series 14.From series 1 to 11, Sir Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly presented the pro-celebrity ballroom dancing competition. From series 8 to 11, Forsyth only presented the main show and was replaced for the results show by Claudia Winkleman, at which point Daly assumed Forsyth's role as main presenter and Winkleman assumed Daly's role as co-presenter. Winkleman joined Daly as full-time co-presenter for series 12 following Forsyth's departure after the 2013 series. Forsyth continued to present special editions of the show until 2015. Through telephone voting, viewers vote for who they would like to be in the next round, the results of the poll being combined with the ranking of the judges. For example, with ten contestants left, the judges' favourite would receive ten points, second favourite nine points, and so on, and similarly with the viewers' rankings. The bottom ranked couple gets one point. In the event of tied scoring from the judges by two or more contestants, the couple immediately below them gets one point below them, until the bottom ranked couple on the leaderboard who ends up getting at least 2 points instead of one. The profits from the telephone lines were donated to Sport Relief in series 1, and to Children in Need from series 2 until series 8.
The judging panel initially consisted of Bruno Tonioli, Arlene Phillips, Len Goodman and Craig Revel Horwood. Alesha Dixon replaced Phillips from series 7 to 9, after which she left the programme to judge Britain's Got Talent which led to retired ballerina Dame Darcey Bussell to replace her. Goodman left the show after the 2016 series and was replaced by Shirley Ballas who was promoted as Head Judge following a selection process which attracted many candidates. Bussell remained as judge until 2018 and was replaced by Motsi Mabuse in 2019. Up until 2020, Tonioli commuted weekly between Hollywood and London to judge both the American and British versions of the show simultaneously. However, due the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, he could not appear on both the British and American shows. No replacement was named for the 2020 series; but pro dancer Anton Du Beke took his place from the 2021 series, and has now replaced Tonioli full-time on the panel. The current judging panel consists of Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse, Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke, making Horwood the only judge to remain with the programme since its inception. Each judge gives the performance a mark out of ten, giving an overall total out of forty. The voice-over announcer is Alan Dedicoat.
The singers on the show are Tommy Blaize, Hayley Sanderson, Lance Ellington, Andrea Grant and formerly British dance music vocalist Tara McDonald. The music director is Dave Arch. Tommy Blaize has been part of Strictly since its beginning. Arch joined in the fourth series and Hayley Sanderson in the fifth. The original musical director from series 1 to 3 was Laurie Holloway. In the seventeenth series, the singers were joined by Mitchel Emms.
The show was broadcast from a specially constructed set at BBC Television Centre until its closure in 2013, with the show moving to Elstree Studios' George Lucas Stage 2 from 2013 onwards. However, in the first two series, shows were also filmed at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, where the original Come Dancing series was filmed in the 1970s.
In the second series, two shows were filmed at the Tower Ballroom, show five and the Grand Final, which was broadcast live on 11 December 2004. In 2005, the BBC announced that they would not be returning to the venue for the third series because of "logistical problems". In October 2008, Craig Revel Horwood called for the series to return to the Tower Ballroom, saying, "The atmosphere was electric. It's huge and has so much history. The Tower Ballroom puts a lot of pressure on the professionals and the celebrities to perform to the best of their potential. What a wonderful place to go live to 12 million people. We have got to get the BBC to bring Strictly Come Dancing back to Blackpool." Eventually, for series 7, the show did return to the Tower Ballroom, where Blackpool-born Craig Kelly was eliminated. The episode was aired live on 7 November 2009. Strictly Come Dancing returned to Blackpool for the 2010 and 2011 series. After series 10, when Strictly Come Dancing did not go to Blackpool, they announced that they would return for series 11.
Cast
Presenters and judges
;Colour key:;Notes
Professional dancers
Each series, celebrities are paired with professional dance partners who instruct them in the various dance styles, design their choreography, and perform with them each week in the competition.;Color key
Many of the dancers from the show have formed both professional and personal partnerships. Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova are married, as are James and Ola Jordan. Aljaž Škorjanec and Janette Manrara, who became engaged after joining the show in 2013, were married in 2017. Matthew and Nicole Cutler are divorced, but remain professional partners; Karen Hauer and Kevin Clifton were engaged when Clifton entered the show in 2013 and were married prior to the 2015 series, before divorcing in 2018, while Neil and Katya Jones entered the show as a married couple before separating in 2019. Anton Du Beke and Erin Boag have danced as a professional couple since 1997, while Vincent Simone and Flavia Cacace are former Argentine tango world champions as a duo and have done multiple tours together. Brendan Cole and Camilla Dallerup danced together for many years, including a stint on the original series of Come Dancing; following their split in 2004, Cole and Katya Virshilas formed a professional partnership before splitting in November 2009. Other current and former professional partnerships featured on the show include Dallerup and Ian Waite, Paul Killick and Hanna Karttunen, Andrew Cuerden and Hanna Haarala, Brian Fortuna and Kristina Rihanoff, Rihanoff and Robin Windsor, Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis, siblings Kevin and Joanne Clifton, AJ Pritchard and Chloe Hewitt, and Gorka Márquez and Karen Hauer.
Presentation
Dances
On average, dances last for approximately 90 seconds. Musical accompaniment is provided by an in-house band, led by Dave Arch.Themed Weeks
The show includes themed weeks during the competition. Since Series 20, Movie Week falls on the third week, Halloween Week falls on the sixth week, Blackpool Week falls on the ninth week, and Musicals Week falls on the eleventh week and during the Quarterfinals. Series 22 introduced Icons Week, which originally fell on the seventh week and then on the fifth week in Series 23.Results show
From series 1 to 4, the results show was shown live on Saturday night one hour after the performances.As of series 5, the results show is recorded on the Saturday night directly after the live show and incorporates the result of the viewers' votes, which are completed by 21:30. This was confirmed by the official BBC website in 2008:
Throughout the Sunday results show, the presenters refer to "Saturday night" in reference to the main show due to the timing of the Sunday programme, and the outfits of Tess Daly, Claudia Winkleman and the judges are changed to present an illusion of a second live broadcast while the couples wore the same performance outfits.
For series 7, the Sunday results show was cancelled and returned to Saturday nights as a result of a revamp of the show. It then reverted to Sundays from series 8.