Strictly Come Dancing 2012 Celebs Unveiled

[ManicKangaroo]

STRICTLY CONTESTANTS 2012

Richard Arnold
Johnny Ball
Fern Britton
Nicky Byrne
Jerry Hall
Dani Harmer
Sid Owen
Victoria Pendleton
Lisa Riley
Colin Salmon
Louis Smith
Denise Van Outen
Michael Vaughan
Kimberley Walsh




Johnny Ball and Fern Britton are among the 14 celebrities who will take part in this year's Strictly Come Dancing.

Also competing are Olympic stars Louis Smith and Victoria Pendleton, model Jerry Hall, Kimberley Walsh of Girls Aloud and cricketer Michael Vaughan.

Denise Van Outen and actor Colin Salmon will take part alongside EastEnders' Sid Owen and Westlife's Nicky Byrne.

Actress Dani Harmer, Daybreak's Richard Arnold and ex-Emmerdale star Lisa Riley will also line up in Saturday's show.

In the first episode the stars will be matched with their professional dance partners.

At 74, former children's TV host Johnny Ball is the oldest competitor to participate in this year's show.

He and his fellow contestants will hope to follow in the footsteps of McFly drummer Harry Judd, winner of last year's competition.

Sir Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly will return as hosts, while returning judges Craig Revel Horwood, Bruno Tonioli and Len Goodman will be joined by ballet star Darcey Bussell.

Bussell previously appeared as a guest judge on the show and will now become a full-time member of the panel to replace Alesha Dixon, who left at the end of the last season to join ITV1 talent show Britain's Got Talent.

Saturday's show will feature a red carpet event and a dance number around BBC Television Centre featuring the professional dancers, judges and hosts.

British cyclist Pendleton, who retired from her sport after winning gold and silver medals at the London 2012 Games, had previously spoken of her desire to take part in the show.

Pendleton's agent confirmed her appearance on Monday, saying she would "work at it to become a very good dancer".

Gymnast Smith, 23, won a silver medal in the pommel horse event and previously displayed his singing talents as a contestant on The X Factor.

Harmer, best known for playing Tracy Beaker on CBBC, was the first celebrity to be unveiled ahead of the latest Strictly series.

Walsh, whose involvement was confirmed over the weekend, has since tweeted a photo of herself practising with dancer Anton du Beke.

Salmon has appeared in the James Bond and Resident Evil film series, while Riley is known to millions of soap fans as Emmerdale's Mandy Dingle.

Strictly Comes Dancing begins on 15 September on BBC One at 18:30 BST.

[ManicKangaroo]

[greendemon]

an interesting bunch. i don't know most of the TV personalities but i might watch for the olympians and vaughan.

[Roo.]

Not really anyone who grabs my attention this year

[Jordan]

That looks like a pretty great line-up to me!

[o]

From Girls Aloud to Strictly!

[Mart!n]

I'll be watching for Victoria Pendleton

[Panda]

Richard Arnold? I wonder who dropped out at short notice to warrant getting him...

[o]

So is anyone else watching? I thought I'd give it a go tonight and see what the standard is like...

[Razzle Dazzle]

don't think i will be watching, not that i usually do

[o]

Just me then, poor Victoria

[raliverpool]

Sept 11, 2012 15:01:00 GMT 1 Mart!n said:

I'll be watching for Victoria Pendleton

From the way she danced tonight you won't be watching her for very long , unless as many men discover the urge to vote for her as they now seem to watch the Great British Bake Off

On tonight's show Colin Salmon is the "dark horse" (in more ways than one), he was really impressive, and Michael Vaughan was not as awful as was led to be believed.

But now we know who Miranda's mum & Jessica Stevenson's character in 2012 was based on.

Ya .... Ya ..... Ohkay Yah? .......

Darcey Bushell may be Britain's greatest Ballerina of the past 40 years but she is incredibly annoying to listen to (if also rather more pleasant to look at).

Come back Alesha Dixon or Arlene Phillips all is forgiven.

[Tom]

Oct 5, 2012 22:02:45 GMT 1 o said:

Just me then, poor Victoria

I always watch it, but last year this thread was hardly posted in so figured either very few others did or they were more interested in talking about the X Factor...Agree with your sentiment about Victoria.

As for what raliverpool says, Victoria Pendleton will be fine, i think she'll be popular enough to last until about halfway through. But unless she improves she'll be gone when the competition gets serious. Agree with the comments about Colin Salmon and Michael Vaughan, but Darcey Bushell i'd rather have on the panel than Alesha. Didn't mind Alesha until last year when I started disagreeing with her marks, and I'd rather hear what Darcey has to say over Alesha as I think that Darcey knows what she's talking about more than Alesha did.

[raliverpool]

All hail Mandy Dingle ..... I have just watched the equivalent of Rylan being the best act on fiX-Factor week 1.

The celebrities on the whole were much better than last night, early days but I think this could be the best series ever of SCD, and with the not denied allegations that 6 of the final 12 (+2 of the 4 wildcards) were fast tracked through the audition process then X-Factor's #1 Saturday night status is looking about as dodgy as an alleged BBC 1970s Radio 1 paedophile ring.

[o]

OOoh more people watching it, let's try and keep the thread alive Not seen tonight yet, will watch later so I can fastforward bruces' dire jokes.

[Tom]

Oct 6, 2012 20:44:07 GMT 1 o said:

OOoh more people watching it, let's try and keep the thread alive Not seen tonight yet, will watch later so I can fastforward bruces' dire jokes.

Or rather the dire jokes the producers give him (he's even criticised them himself at times), never used to be bothered about them before, in fact sometimes they made me laugh, but they're getting tiresome now.

I hear people complaining about Brucie (and tbf he did struggle on Friday maybe because it was a later show) but whenever i've seen him on TV in the time he's done Strictly (watched him on The Generation Game before that) he's been better unscripted. I wish we saw more of that Brucie than the one we get on Strictly. It would be interesting to find out what he's like in the warm-up.

And i'm with raliverpool on the strength of this year's contestants. Even at the launch there looked a number of them that could potentially do well.

[o]

People at work that watch the show cant stand Brucie either

[raliverpool]

Last night SCD narrowly beat XF in the ratings:

Strictly Come Dancing: 8.72m (40.7%); peak: 10.2m (42.8%)
The X Factor: 8.68m (37.9%); peak: 9.91m (42.8%)

This time last year XF beat SCD by 2.20 million.

[Paul]

Not surprising really. SCD has a great lineup and XF is looking very predictable

[LittleChristmasTurkey]

Oct 7, 2012 17:09:28 GMT 1 raliverpool said:

Last night SCD narrowly beat XF in the ratings:

Strictly Come Dancing: 8.72m (40.7%); peak: 10.2m (42.8%)
The X Factor: 8.68m (37.9%); peak: 9.91m (42.8%)

This time last year XF beat SCD by 2.20 million.

Not according to The Telegraph:

The X Factor won round one of the Saturday night ratings war with an audience of 9.2 million tuning into its first live show, but lost significant ground to an Olympian-studded Strictly Come Dancing which added more than 1 million viewers.

The first live show of ITV's latest series of The X Factor, which has struggled compared to last year and is down about 2 million viewers, attracted an average of 9.2 million viewers between 8pm and 10.20pm.

The show, which managed a 40% share, with a five-minute peak of 10.3 million.

BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing launched its first live show on Saturday night, managing an average audience of 8.7 million between 6.30pm and 7.45pm, a 40.7% share.

The show, which has sought to tap into Olympic fever featuring athletes Victoria Pendleton and Louis Smith, notched up a five-minute peak of 10.2 million.