It is already way past working hours, yet you can feel the Strictly Come Dancing machine still whirring. At the studios where the BBC dance competition will take place over the next few months, boxes of hairpieces are piled in the corridor, the lights are on around the mirrors in the makeup room, rails of sequinned dresses in frothy chiffon seem to jostle for a writhing body to fill them and is that one of the pro-dancers bouncing up the stairs topless? On the way to Craig Revel Horwood’s dressing room, I get a glimpse of fellow judge Anton Du Beke. He is, as you would expect, wearing a glittery tuxedo. If you have been watching Strictly for any of its 19-year run, it all feels both weirdly familiar and otherworldly.
