Tears, tiaras and trodden toes: they’re back

THE tears, the tight catsuits and the skimpy sparkly dresses are back as the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing announced its 2011 cast, with a line-up including Scots singer Lulu and impressionist Rory Bremner.

The ninth series will provide 14 contestants ranging from footballing “bad boy” Robbie Savage – once dubbed “the dirtiest player in the Premier League” – to former health minister Edwina Currie, who revealed how she and former prime minister John Major had been lovers for four years.

The show will be hosted once again by “national treasure” the recently knighted Sir Bruce Forsyth and his co-host, Tess Daly.

Sixties pop star Lulu, from Glasgow, who shot to fame with Shout, recorded when she was just 15, made a racy video for her cover of Relight My Fire with Take That, featuring Jason Orange in the shower.

Fellow Scot Bremner, who once telephoned the then foreign secretary Margaret Beckett, impersonating Gordon Brown and extracted embarrassingly candid indiscretions, said he was looking forward to the show because “it fits nicely with my mid-life crisis and offers fitness, a unique experience and all the fake tan you can ask for. Yah!”

Meanwhile, Savage said he wanted to change people’s perceptions of him.

“Off the field I’m a down-to-earth, normal guy and I want to learn something new in my life.

“I’m quite a nervous guy. On the football pitch I’m very secure, but anything else I’m quite shy, so I’m hoping Strictly helps me to come out of my shell a bit,” he said.

Other contestants include astrologer Russell Grant, weighing in at 18st, and the svelte Nancy Dell’Olio. An Italian property lawyer and the former partner of ex-England manager Sven Goran Eriksson, Dell’Olio is now in an on-off relationship with theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn.

One of the musicians in the competition is Harry Judd from McFly, who won last year’s Children in Need version of Strictly with Orla Jordan.

Judd, who was linked to Hollywood wildchild Lindsay Lohan after they starred together in Just My Luck, said: “I love a challenge and this will certainly be the biggest challenge I’ve taken on. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I couldn’t turn down.”

Other “celebs” include Jason Donovan, the Australian singer and Neighbours actor; fellow Neighbours star Holly Valance; tennis pro and Daybreak presenter Dan Lobb; boxer Audley Harrison; former East-Enders actress Anita Dobson, who played the soap’s original landlady Angie Watts; Chelsee Healey, of the BBC’s Waterloo Road; and One Show presenter Alex Jones.

The celebrities have already been spotted coming out of rehearsals, where they are partnered with professional dancers who put them through their paces before they take to the floor for the Saturday elimination night rounds, after which viewers vote on their skill or otherwise at dances such as the waltz, salsa and foxtrot.

BBC chiefs are aiming to beat ITV’s The X Factor in the ratings battle as the two compete for the Saturday night audiences. As a new flourish, the Strictly final will be broadcast in 3D, live, from the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool.