TV & Radio

Angela Scanlon joins Strictly Come Dancing 2023 line-up

‘It’s been in the ether for a number of years, we’ve been close,’ says Irish television presenter

Strictly Come Dancing 2023: Irish TV presenter Angela Scanlon is the sixth celebrity announced for the BBC programme. Photograph: BBC/PA Wire

Mon Aug 7 2023 - 12:16

Irish TV presenter Angela Scanlon has been announced as the latest star to sign up for Strictly Come Dancing 2023.

The 39-year-old, whose credits include BBC Two’s Your Home Made Perfect and The One Show, was unveiled on BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show on Monday and is the sixth celebrity confirmed for the 21st series of the BBC flagship programme.

It comes after actor Amanda Abbington, Bad Education star Layton Williams, broadcaster Angela Rippon, journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy and comedian Eddie Kadi were the first contestants announced to be taking part in the show.

Scanlon told Gaby Roslin, who sits in for Ball on the Breakfast Show, about her forthcoming debut on the dancefloor, saying: “It’s been in the ether for a number of years, we’ve been close.

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“Truthfully, we wanted to have another baby, we were trying to have a baby, I was then pregnant, then I had a very small child and now, it just felt right this year.

[ Angela Scanlon on life in London: ‘I am Irish through and through’ ]

“I believe in feelings and timing and all of those sorts of things. I’m not particularly fit. I have no idea how my pelvic floor is going to react to that level of jumping.

“I’ve never done any of these dances in my life bar a drunken jive at a family wedding, so it certainly feels like there’s room to learn and really push myself.”

Scanlon said she had spoken to Ted Lasso actor Ellie Taylor, who took part in the show last year, and BBC Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo, who appeared in the 2020 series.

She said: “Ellie has a little girl who’s the same age as my eldest child and so I thought it’d be good to know realistically when you’re in the trenches with children, what’s the reality of this because I think I’ve had a kind of dreamy idea.

“I travel a bit, I do a chatshow in Ireland, I travel over and back to that so the idea of being in the same place for an extended period of time feels a bit luxurious.”

[ Angela Scanlon: ‘What I loved about lockdown was the lack of comparison’ ]

The TV presenter is the only woman in the UK and Ireland to have their own Saturday night chatshow with Ask Me Anything on RTÉ One.

Scanlon, who married businessman Roy Horgan in 2014, with whom she shares two daughters, is also a published author and host of positivity podcast Thanks a Million.

In 2022, she published her part memoir, part self-help book Joyrider, which charts her own journey into the world of self-development – dipping into the anxiety and impostor syndrome she grappled with throughout her teens and 20s, and the bulimia she lived with for 15 years. – PA

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