Debbie McGee and Simon Rimmer will tackle one of Strictly Come Dancing’s toughest dances, the paso doble, when they take to the dance floor for the first time
Debbie McGee and Simon Rimmer will tackle one of Strictly Come Dancing’s toughest dances, the paso doble, when they take to the dance floor for the first time.
TV chef Simon and his professional partner Karen Clifton will dance to Blur’s Song 2, while McGee and her partner Giovanni Pernice will celebrate his Italian roots with a performance to Fergie’s Be Italian.
The BBC One dancing series returns on Saturday September 23 for the first episode following its launch last weekend.
Traditionally the first live shows, where audiences see the celebrities dance as part of a couple for the first time, have been split between two episodes on a Friday and Saturday night.
This year, however, the two episodes have been combined into one for the Saturday night, which will see the likes of Mollie King and Holby City star Joe McFadden take on the jive.
Last year’s winner, Ore Oduba, became the first Strictly contestant in the 2016 series to earn a nearly perfect score from the judges when he and Joanne Clifton scored a 39 for their jive to Bruno Mars’s Runaway Baby.
The Saturdays singer King and AJ Pritchard will perform the energetic dance to Good Golly Miss Molly by Little Richard.
Soap star McFadden and Katya Jones will dance to the Michael Jackson version of Rockin’ Robin.
Four couples will take on the cha cha, including Rev Richard Coles and Dianne Buswell, who will dance to Eurythmics’ There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart).
The remaining three couples tackling the Latin dance will be soap star Chizzy Akudolu and Pasha Kovalev performing to Boogie Fever by The Sylvers, Gemma Atkinson and Aljaz Skorjanec to Shawn Mendes’s There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back and lastly, EastEnders star Davood Ghadami and Nadiya Bychkova will dance to Lloyd’s Dedication To My Ex featuring Andre 3000.
Another quartet of dances will be the waltz, which will see Alexandra Burke and Gorka Marquez gliding along to Aretha Franklin’s (You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Woman.
Paralympian Jonnie Peacock and Oti Mabuse will dance the waltz to When I Need You by Luther Vandross and This Morning presenter Ruth Langsford will perform with Anton Du Beke doing his signature dance to This Nearly Was Mine by Seth MacFarlane.
The final couple performing the waltz will be Scottish comedian Susan Calman and Kevin Clifton, who will do a Viennese waltz to Mad About The Boy by Dinah Washington.
Former JLS star Aston Merrygold and Janette Manrara will foxtrot to Harry Connick Jr’s It Had To Be You, while Good Morning Britain’s Charlotte Hawkins will also foxtrot with Brendan Cole to The Best Is Yet To Come by crooner Michael Buble.
There will only be one tango performed on the evening, with entertainer Brian Conley and newcomer Welsh professional dancer Amy Dowden dancing to Heaven 17’s hit Temptation.
Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday September 23 at 6.25pm on BBC One.
