Craig Revel Horwood has spilled all on the upcoming series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Strictly launches next Saturday night (October 17) on BBC One and the show will feature its first same-sex pairing as boxer Nicola Adams is paired up with a female pro dancer.
Craig, who has been a judge on the series since the very first episode, thinks the move is “going to be amazing”.
Appearing on FUBAR Radio, Craig told hosts Bobby Norris and Stephen Leng on Access All Areas: “I think it’s great. I think it’s fantastic. I’ve been championing this for five years and it’s taken ‘the beeb’ sort of five years of me waving the big old flag for it to happen. And they did it.”
He continued: “The beauty about having two girls together is the pro girls never, ever get to lead. They always have to try and make their celebrity partners, who can’t really dance, lead them around the dancefloor, which is a nightmare.
“But in this situation of course, it’s very exciting because it’s the first time one of the girls, I don’t know who that is yet, but one of them will be able to lead, which I think is going to be amazing!”
Although not confirmed, it’s been rumoured that Nicola could be partnered up with pro Katya Jones, a pairing that Craig thinks will work wonders.
He said: “Oh I think that’ll be fabulous if it is in fact Katya. I hope it is, I mean she’s fabulous. She’s a taskmaster too, which I think is brilliant. And I think that’s what a boxer will need.”
Meanwhile, Craig confessed he was going to miss Bruno Tonioli, who will be away from the show at the start of the series due to travel restrictions.
He said: “I’m really going to miss him. I’ve been on the show since May 2004 with Bruno and we’ve become great mates over the past 15 years. It’s really going to be hard without him there.”
However Bruno is still set to take part in the series, joining via video link on Sunday results shows.
Craig said: “It is going to be sad not having him but he is going to be making comments throughout the whole season and he’ll be with us I believe for the semi-final and the final, so that’ll be good.”
