Strictly Come Dancing stars given secret code names for unusual reason – dogs to fruits

Strictly Come Dancing is well known for choosing incredible celebrity line-up for each series of the hit BBC dance show.

Celebrities like McFly’s Tom Fletcher, X Factor star Alexandra Burke and this year Coronation Street’s Kym Marsh have all taken to the Strictly dance floor to show off their moves for the judges.

But you might wonder how do BBC bosses keep the identities of these celebs under wraps until the show starts? Well, each year Strictly producers choose a category for nicknames which they’ll use for celebs.

READ MORE: Strictly’s Craig booked Maisie Smith for Broadway show ‘before she walked out the door’

The Daily Star has pulled together some of the weird and wacky nickname categories our celebs have been saddled with.

2016 – Shakespeare characters

2016’s cast of Strictly took on characters from the infamous Shakespeare plays, including Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest and Macbeth.

Louise Redknapp was known as Portia, the rich and beautiful protagonist in The Merchant of Venice and BBC Breakfast’s Naga Munchetty was nicknamed Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing.

While nicknames are normally assigned, Laura Whitmore took the reigns and asked to be known as Lady Macbeth. Chatting to Nick Grimshaw on the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, Laura said: “I asked for Lady Macbeth. I didn’t really think about it because then there’s a car outside your house and it’s for Lady Macbeth!”

2017 – Classical gods and heroes

In 2017, producers name the celebrities are Classical Greek gods and heroes.

X Factor winner Alexandra Burke was given Aphrodite, having starred in the romantic musical The Bodyguard, Debbie McGee was known as Circe, goddess of sorcery – fitting as Debbie was best known as the assistant and widow of magician Paul Daniels.

Good Morning Britain’s Charlotte Hawkins was known as Aurora, god of dawn as she’s used to waking the nation up every morning on the ITV show and actress Gemma Atkinson was known as Athena because she trained daily for the weekend shows.

2018 – Cheese

Strictly presenters Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly told fans that 2018’s cast would be named after everything from Stilton to Jarlsberg.

Claudia revealed that the person named Wensleydale was “nice, northern and creamy”, it was later confirmed Wensleydale was radio presenter Vick Hope.

Claudia went on to list the ‘cheeses’ and their qualities, saying Gouda, given to Seann Walsh, might “make you laugh”, Cheddar aka BBC’s Stacey Dooley was “sharp, hard – excellent” and Katie Piper, known as Brie was “better than Stilton” and “not too smelly”.

2019 – Superheroes

Famous superheroes were used to conceal the identity of 2019’s Strictly contestants.

Comedian Chris Ramsey was appropriately described as the Banana Man while EastEnders star Emma Barton went by Mystique, the transformative X-Men villain.

Ex-England goalkeeper David James was The Hulk, thanks to his tall, muscular physique and YouTuber Saffron Barker was better known to producers as Supergirl.

Captain America was reportedly given to contestants arriving from across the Atlantic to take part in the show.

2020 – Fruits

Taking inspirations from 2018’s cheese category, BBC bosses dished out code names to the 2020 cast of Strictly based on fruit. Stars on the show included EastEnders actress Maisie Smith, pro boxer Nicola Adams MBE and Made In Chelsea’s Jamie Laing.

The 2020 winner was none other than comedian Bill Bailey.

2021 – Cartoon characters

Celebrities Tom Fletcher, Dan Walker and Katie McGlynn were given code names based on popular cartoon characters for last year’s Strictly.

McFly’s Tom was known as Buzz Lightyear since his son has the same name, AJ Odudu was Marge Simpson and comedian Robert Webb was appropriately named Spongebob Squarepants.

2022 – Dog breeds

Strictly stars this year were given the names of dog breeds to hide their identity.

Loose Women’s Kaye Adams was given the Scottish Terrier, being from the same country as the breed. Singer Fleur East’s husky voice led to her being known as Husky, were as smiley Ellie Simmonds was given Golden Retriever.

Speaking about the peculiar tradition, radio presenter Scott Mills revealed bosses are “so worried” about the identities leaking.

He said: “They’re so worried about it leaking out, obviously the papers try and guess all the time.”

Scott continued: “They try and keep it under wraps so much that they give everyone code names every year. I felt like I was in James Bond – it was so cool.”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk