Anton Du Beke will return as Strictly Come Dancing judge, says Craig Revel Horwood

Anton Du Beke will be back as a judge on Strictly Come Dancing this year, Craig Revel Horwood has said.

Pro dancer Anton stepped in for Bruno Tonioli in the most recent series as he is unable to take part due to the pandemic.

While it’s yet to be officially announced what will happen this year, Craig has claimed Anton will be back.

Speaking during his on-going stage show tour, Craig shared (via The Sun): “I really love Anton. I think he is fantastic. I think last year he did a great job on Strictly as a judge.

“And we have just found out he is going to do it again this year.”

Speaking previously, Craig said he hoped to see five judges on this year’s show.

He explained: “I’d love to see Anton stay on permanently and Bruno back. I think that would be good for all of us.

“Bruno adds something Anton can’t and vice-versa, if you look at it that way, so I think they’ve both got different opinions which I think is perfectly good.

“We could easily have five people on that panel. I think our time would be limited because there are only two minutes for the judges to talk but we would make it count.”

Alongside Craig and Anton, 2021’s Strictly panel included Motsi Mabuse and head judge Shirley Ballas.

The line up of judges for 2022 is to be announced ahead of the new series airing this autumn.

Last week saw this year’s returning professional dancers revealed after the exits of Oti Mabuse and Aljaž Škorjanec.

Those back on this year’s show are Dianne Buswell, Nadiya Bychkova, Graziano Di Prima, Amy Dowden, Karen Hauer, Katya Jones, Neil Jones, Nikita Kuzmin, Cameron Lombard, Gorka Marquez, Luba Mushtuk, Giovanni Pernice, Jowita Przystal, Johannes Radebe, Kai Widdrington and Nancy Xu.

The BBC say that further announcements and information, including any additional dancers joining the professional line-up, will be announced in due course.

You can catch up on the last series of Strictly online via BBC iPlayer here.