STRICTLY COME DANCING Returns BBC One for 16th Series

Dust off your dancing shoes, Strictly Come Dancing is waltzing back onto BBC One for its 16th series.

The NTA and Bafta award-winning entertainment show produced by BBC Studios returns with more sparkle, glitz and glamour than ever.

The celebrities strutting their stuff on the dance floor this series are Ashley Roberts, Faye Tozer, Kate Silverton, Katie Piper, Lauren Steadman, Stacey Dooley, Susannah Constantine, Vick Hope, Charles Venn, Danny John-Jules, Graeme Swann, Joe Sugg, Lee Ryan, Dr Ranj Singh and Seann Walsh.

On Saturday 8 September at 7.35pm, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman host an exclusive premiere and roll out the red carpet to welcome the celebrity class of 2018 as they prepare to begin their Strictly adventure.

The fifteen celebrity contestants will make their grand entrance from the red carpet into the famous Strictly ballroom to discover which professional dancer they will be paired with. Once the pairings have been announced the celebrities and professionals will take to the dancefloor for the very first time for what promises to be, an entertaining group performance, launching the new series in Strictly style.

Our four fabulous judges Bruno Tonioli, Craig Revel Horwood, Dame Darcey Bussell and Shirley Ballas return to the panel and will be casting their expert judgement every week.

Three new world-class dancers are joining the show, Italian Latin Champion Graziano Di Prima, Professional South African Latin Champion Johannes Radebe and four-time winner of the Italian Dance Championship Luba Mushtuk. They join Strictly favourites AJ Pritchard, Aljaž Škorjanec, Amy Dowden, Anton Du Beke, Dianne Buswell, Giovanni Pernice, Gorka Marquez, Janette Manrara, Karen Clifton, Katya Jones, Kevin Clifton, Nadiya Bychkova, Neil Jones, Oti Mabuse and Pasha Kovalev.

Once the celebrities are paired up with their professional dancer, they will have two weeks to rehearse before returning to the ballroom to perform live to the nation every Saturday night. There will be no public vote in the first week and the results show with Tess and Claudia will begin from week two on Sunday nights. From then, each week the two couples with the lowest combined scores, from the judges and public vote, will face each other in the dance off, and one couple will leave the competition for good.

At the halfway stage of the competition and now a Strictly Come Dancing tradition, the show will travel to the international home of ballroom dancing where the celebrities and their partners will perform at the world famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

Zoë Ball will also return to host Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two on BBC Two. The weekday show is back with even more exclusive access and backstage gossip than ever before.

Finally, there will be exclusive behind-the-scenes action available on the official Strictly website at bbc.co.uk/strictly and across social media on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. And this series for the first time we're collaborating with BBC Three who will be creating exciting additional content across their digital platforms. There will also be even more Strictly news to enjoy via the official Strictly Come Dancing podcast.

To post a comment, you must register and login.