Strictly Come Dancing: four live tours announced for 2021 and 2022 as ballroom bonanza makes up for lost ground

Large scale live events may be a little way off yet, but Strictly Come Dancing is planning not one, not two, but four tours to take place both this year and next.

Four different jaunts will waltz across the UK in 2021 and 2022, beginning with the Strictly Come Dancing: The Professionals tour, which had originally been scheduled to open on 7 May, but will now begin performances on 26 June in Salford at The Lowry.

From there, the show will travel to Blackpool, Liverpool, Halifax, Hull, Birmingham, Portsmouth, Plymouth, Reading, Bournemouth, Sheffield, Nottingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Cardiff, before finishing in London on 24 July.

The show will be directed by Strictly’s creative director of choreography Jason Gilkison, and will feature professional dancers Dianne Buswell, Karen Hauer, Katya Jones, Neil Jones, Gorka Marquez, Luba Mushtuk, Johannes Radebe, and Dancing With The Stars Ireland professional dancer, Kai Widdrington.

A second ‘The Professionals’ tour has also been scheduled for 2022 to accommodate fans with tickets to 2021 Professionals tour dates that could not be rescheduled this year due to venue availability.

The tour will open on 28 April 2022 in Salford, and the dancer line-up will be announced later this year.

Customers who hold tickets for the existing 2021 tour will be able to exchange their tickets for these new dates via their original point of purchase.

What are the other tours?

The second tour is the Strictly Presents: The Power of Dance tour, which has also been rescheduled due to theatre closures. It was originally planned to open in June 2021, but will now tour the UK from June 2022.

Casting will be announced soon, but the show will be directed and choreographed by former Strictly professional dancer Trent Whiddon and his wife and dance partner, Gordana Grandosek.

The tour will open in Tunbridge Wells before playing Basingstoke, Cambridge, Halifax, Wolverhampton, Northampton, Grimsby, New Brighton, Stockton, Aberdeen, Dundee, Llandudno, Leicester, Croydon, Bath, Eastbourne, Canterbury, Warrington, Bridlington, Carlisle, Southend, Poole, High Wycombe, Aylesbury, and Torquay.

The third tour is the Strictly Come Dancing Live Arena Tour – directed by judge Craig Revel Horwood – which will return in 2022.

It will kick off in Birmingham on 20 January with a host of celebrity and professional dancers from the upcoming 2021 series of the television show, and will take in 33 shows in Leeds, Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Glasgow, Nottingham, and London.

For more information on Strictly Come Dancing live – including tour dates and how to get tickets – head to strictlycomedancinglive.com

Who is dancing in Strictly 2021?

As far as the usual television show goes, Strictly recently announced its line-up of professional dancers who will be taking a celebrity partner under their wing when the series returns later this year.

Anton Du Beke will continue his reign as the longest-serving professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing after the BBC confirmed he is part of the 2021 line-up.

The ballroom pro, 54, will take to the dance floor of the BBC One series this year once again, marking his 19th stint on the show.

Professional dancers Janette Manrara and Karen Hauer will also return to Strictly in the autumn, as will Neil Jones, Amy Dowden and Giovanni Pernice.

The line-up of professionals also includes Dianne Buswell, Graziano Di Prima, Johannes Radebe, Luba Mushtuk, Nadiya Bychkova and Nancy Xu.

More information, including which celebrity contestants the dancers will be paired with, will be announced in due course, the BBC said.

Additional reporting by Press Association