The first celebrities staring in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing have been confirmed by the BBC.
McFly star Tom Feltcher, Peep Show’s Robert Webb and TV presenter AJ Odudu were unveiled on BBC’s The One Show.
Here is a run down of the first celebs to be putting their best foot forward.
1. Tom Fletcher
Fletcher is the lead vocalist and guitarist of pop band McFly, who have produced six albums and seven number-one singles.
The 36-year-old is the main writer on many of the boy band’s hits and is also credited with penning songs for One Direction and Busted.
Tom and Giovanna Fletcher arriving for the Olivier Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in London (PA)
He married longtime girlfriend Giovanna in 2012 and his wedding speech, which riffed on some of McFly’s greatest hits, later went viral after he uploaded it to his YouTube channel.
The couple have continued to document their lives together, including three creative baby announcement videos which delighted fans.
Giovanna, who is a bestselling author, also won the 20th series of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! in 2020.
2. Robert Webb
The actor and comedian is best known for appearing alongside David Mitchell in Channel 4 comedy Peep Show, where he plays unemployed musician Jez, or in sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Look.
The 48-year-old has also regularly appeared on comedy panels for Have I Got News For You, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, QI and Mastermind.
Robert Webb at the 2010 British Comedy Awards (PA)
Webb read English at Robinson College, Cambridge and joined the university’s theatre club Footlights, where he met Mitchell.
In 2020, he had major heart surgery after a routine medical check during filming for the second series of his sitcom Back revealed he had a heart murmur caused by a mitral valve prolapse.
Webb has also produced a memoir, How Not To Be A Boy, based on his life growing up in Lincolnshire, and in 2020 he published his first novel, Come Again, and Olivia Colman narrated the audiobook version.
3. AJ Odudu
Odudu began her career as a reporter for BBC Blast on Radio Lancashire and went on to co-host the spin-off Big Brother’s Bit On The Side with Emma Willis and Rylan Clark-Neal and produce the documentary Manhunting With My Mum in Nigeria.
The 33-year-old has also done backstage reporting for The Voice UK and The Voice Kids UK.
She is also a qualified personal trainer and sports nutritionist and was appointed as a contributing editor to Grazia magazine in 2021.
Recently she appeared in ITV series Cooking With The Stars and is hosting ITV’s new gameshow Apocalypse Wow which sees celebrities compete in a series of physical challenges in a bid to win money for charity.
She will join Bafta-winning comedian Mo Gilligan to host a one-off special of morning show The Big Breakfast for Channel 4’s Black To Front day in September, a project which celebrates black talent in the TV industry.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article