Appointing the new hosts of Strictly Come Dancing is the most important decision for the BBC in years. Forget University Challenge, Desert Island Discs, the Today programme or the Radio 2 Breakfast Show – forget the licence fee and the director general. Replacing Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman is make-or-break.
To reassure fans, to steady the ship, to have half a chance at growing its audience and to send a message about the BBC’s future and all that it values, they had to get it right. If the rumours are true and Emma Willis is about to be announced, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
In the six months since Tess and Claud announced their departure, I haven’t had much faith the BBC would avoid a catastrophic mistake. All signs – including a lot of cleaning house with the professional dancers, including Karen Hauer and Gorka Marquez– have pointed to a major rebrand that might alienate longtime fans like me.
Given the scandals of the past few years, a Strictly shake-up is not before time. But there was a big risk they’d appoint some influencer with a big audience in a bid to attract the ever-enigmatic “youth” audience and make Strictly “cool” (and Strictly has never been cool). Or play it so safe, fearing more controversy, that they keep it in the family and hand it to someone from the Strictly extended universe of judges, pros, It Takes Two hosts and ex-stars, and make the new series an anticlimax.
Names have been circulating for months – Zoe Ball, Alex Jones, Rylan Clark, Angela Scanlon – but no fantasy candidate seems to tread that line between familiar and energising. Strictly fans are ready for change, but this is a show rooted in community, routine and comfort – it can easily go stale, but anything too radical will scare us off.
Enter Emma Willis, who The Sun reports is “one of the two women” set to front the programme and is the closest thing we could hope for to a perfect fit.
Willis is one of the biggest grafters in British broadcasting – but you’d never know it, because in the nearly 25 years she’s been on TV, she has never threatened to overshadow the programmes she’s in (even when her name’s in the title).
Let’s get the CV out of the way: Willis, from Sutton Coldfield in Birmingham, started off as a model before getting her first presenting gig on MTV in 2002. She cut her teeth on spin-offs like I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! NOW! and Big Brother’s Little Brother, she’s paid her dues on daytime presenting This Morning and Loose Women, she’s been the face of reality formats like The Voice UK, The Circle and Love Is Blind and was Davina McCall’s successor on Big Brother when it moved to Channel 5.
If that sounds a bit, well, lowbrow, so was Tess before she got the Strictly gig – it takes time and trust to become a national treasure. And Willis has done serious documentaries too: she qualified as a maternity care assistant for Emma Willis: Delivering Babies, explored the impact of tech on teenagers in Swiped: The School That Banned Smartphones, and looked at the benefits of specialist therapy on Matt and Emma Willis: Change Your Mind, Change Your Life.
Willis with her husband Matt (Photo: Hoda Davaine/Getty Images)The point is, she’s more than qualified and she’s versatile: an old hand when it comes to live broadcasting, experienced when it comes to managing vulnerable celebrities, and as a 50-year-old mother of three she seems approachable, unfazed and relatable. She is glamorous – but not threateningly so. She’s got a warmth and a regional accent, and you can just as easily imagine her sitting at home watching Strictly as you can wearing ballgown hosting it.
What makes her special, though, and what Strictly needs, is her grit. Willis’s public persona is not of someone cosy, so over-cautious she’s scared to have opinions and who sees presenting as a game of keeping things palatable. She is steely and won’t take nonsense: she regularly won praise for holding celebrities to account for their objectionable behaviour and prejudices in the Big Brother house, interrogating actor Roxane Pallett and boxer Winston McKenzie with a rigour and unflappability more often seen on Newsnight than Channel 5.
She doesn’t mind getting sweary or speaking her mind, she’s been open about the struggles in her marriage – ex-Busted musician Matt suffers with addiction – and is comfortable being vulnerable and maternal without compromising her professionalism. She is a natural on Radio 2, on which she hosts the Saturday afternoon show, precisely because she is not always squeaky clean and has a confidence to be herself – like it or lump it.
I feared the BBC would choose someone bland like Rochelle Humes, or a bit square like Miranda Hart, so desperate are they to create a veneer of perfection around this show. But we know by now that the shiny, happy, slick Strictly operation has always been a bit of a veneer, and Willis is popular because she embraces imperfection.
She is also at the exact point in her career for Strictly still to matter. Appoint a massive star and they may not care enough about the job because they don’t need it. Appointing an unknown talent when the stakes are this high is a gamble. Willis is a rare person at the perfect juncture: she’s earned it, she’s “establishment” enough, but Strictly will still be her biggest stage yet and introduce her to an older, dare I say posher, audience who haven’t yet watched her on reality TV. Strictly might look like every presenter’s dream job, but, given the enormous sacrifices involved and the toll this production can take on one’s life and family, as well as the pressure to preserve its reputation, it isn’t mutually beneficial for everyone.
The BBC has yet to confirm Willis – or to announce who her partner in the “Clauditorium” will be. Favourite and friend of Strictly Zoe Ball has said on her podcast Dig It that it will not be her: that she went through “seven stages of grief and rejection” but that if the hosts are who she thinks they are, “we’re in safe hands”. I am confident that fresh-start Willis will be exactly that – but when it comes to rehabilitating Strictly’s reputation, she’s got a job on hers.
Hence then, the article about emma willis is the only host who can handle strictly come dancing was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Emma Willis is the only host who can handle Strictly Come Dancing )
Also on site :
- Instructure strikes deal with hackers who breached it twice .. TechCrunch
- AI voice startup Vapi hits $500M valuation after winning Amazon Ring over 40 rivals
- France’s Macron announces $27bn investment in Africa at Kenya summit