Oti Mabuse teases The Masked Dancer as she joins new ITV show

Oti Mabuse will be guessing the identities of mystery celebrity dancers in The Masked Dancer on ITV.

A spin-off from The Masked Singer, The Masked Dancer will come to the UK later this year.

Strictly star Oti Mabuse will join the panel alongside Jonathan Ross, Mo Gilligan and Davina McCall as Joel Dommett presents.

Oti says of the new series: “It’s an amazing guessing show that’s fun and, for me, it’s just an honour and a privilege to get to do it with such incredible people like Jonathan, Davina, Mo and Joel. We are constantly laughing!

“There is great banter and chemistry and coming to work is a joy. I’m one of those people that is very excitable so when I wake up I’m like ‘wooo! I’m going to work. Yay!’ I love that we get to see a different side of dancing. Dancing is fun but you are adding another element where you have to guess who it is.

“That’s something that we can all do at home and to do it nationally with a dancing show is very refreshing and I love that.

“I thought I would be okay at it but I am so terrible at it. Oh my gosh! It’s actually hurting me a little bit because I was like ‘Oh I’ve got this, I probably know them and they’ve all done some show that I work on’, but it’s hard, it’s really, really difficult. I am slowly becoming a baby Jonathan with my suggestions.”

And Oti says of the dance routines: “My mind has been blown. You just don’t expect that level of dance so it’s really hard to guess who these people are because they are known for other things, not just their dancing skills.

“You don’t expect to see a Carwash doing backflips in a huge costume, it’s crazy but it happens. And I know you guys don’t know what I am talking about but trust me you will be like how can they do that?”

She adds: “I think the costume department is really, really good because you can see that these costumes have been designed for them. Sometimes fashion and dance don’t work well together because you can’t dance in everything but the way that they have done it is so classy, so good.

“They look comfortable dancing in whatever they are wearing and it’s also spectacular. It’s the bigness, the craziness of everything and so it’s just amazing. The costume department is incredible.”

The Masked Dancer starts this Saturday night on ITV and continues nightly throughout next week (29 May to 5 June).

The series will see celebrity contestants perform unique dances, whilst covered from head to toe in extravagant, colourful costumes and masks.

Just like its singing based counter part, the panel and viewers will be left to guess their identities helped along with a series of clues.

Host Joel Dommett said earlier this year: “Well, this is set to be an amazing fun twist… will someone do the twist?! The Masked Dancer is that little bit of silly fun our lives need right now and I’m so excited to be hosting it.

“I’m looking forward to some incredible costumes, epic performances and accidentally saying Masked Singer at least five times.”