Passing the Glitterball

The news breaks the way weather does in December: expected, yet still catching people out. Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly, fixtures of the UK national living room, have had their last tango. Twenty‑odd years of sequins, soft jokes, and the kind of calm that makes a wardrobe malfunction feel like part of the choreography. Now the Strictly Come Dancing ballroom is full of whispers. The glitter-ball baton is up for grabs, and the country has opinions.

Speculation begins before the fake tan has faded. Zoe Ball’s name rises first, drifting like a balloon above the crowd. She’s been here before, third place in 2005, then years on It Takes Two, smiling through the backstage nerves of others. When she announces she’s leaving her Radio 2 Saturday show, the bookmakers panic and freeze the odds. People talk about her as if she’s already slipped into the Strictly wings, waiting for the music cue. But there’s another story running beneath: maybe she just wants some quiet. Maybe stepping back is not always a step toward something else.

Then there’s Alan Carr, still glowing from his Celebrity Traitors victory. His double‑bluffs, his laughter, the way he made the whole country lean in. Suddenly he’s a frontrunner, though he insists no one has approached him. He jokes about it, but the truth is more complicated. He’s booked a 2027 tour, and Strictly’s Saturdays are sacred. The insiders say the show won’t bend for anyone, not even someone who can outwit Stephen Fry on national television. Fame is a strange currency, sometimes it buys you everything except the thing people assume you want.

Alison Hammond’s name arrives with a kind of inevitability. She’s become one of the nation’s most beloved presenters, the sort of person who can make a lost dog story feel like a national event. She’s danced on the show before, back in 2014, and the memory of her joy still lingers. But she’s busy, This Morning, Bake Off, For the Love of Dogs. ITV has just renewed her contract. Schedules become the real judges here, stricter than Craig Revel Horwood on a bad day. This said, people imagine her on that stage, laughing, lifting the room the way she always does.

Bradley Walsh drifts into the conversation. He feels like a man who’s wandered into the wrong studio but decides to stay for the chat. He’s next door anyway, filming The Chase. He dodges questions with ease. He’s been dodging them for decades. He’s old‑school, the closest thing to Bruce Forsyth the industry still has. But he’s also busy, and the sense is that he doesn’t need another commitment. The sparkle is tempting, but sparkle is also work.

And then Holly Willoughby, a name that still carries the weight of two decades of primetime. Her retreat from the spotlight after the security scare left a quiet space around her, a pause in a career that had never paused before. She’s been returning slowly, carefully. Strictly would be a leap back into the centre of things. Some say she’s “box office”, and that the BBC would be thrilled to have her. Others wonder whether she wants that kind of glare again. The ballroom is bright and brightness can be a burden.

All this talk, chemistry tests, insider whispers, suspended betting, becomes its own kind of dance. A choreography of rumour. A waltz of what‑ifs. The nation watches, waiting for the next pair to step forward, to take the mic, to smile into the lights as if they’ve always belonged there.

But beneath the glitter, the truth is simple: shows change, people move on, and the floor is always waiting for new footsteps.