Will Best has revealed that two of Strictly Come Dancing's professional dancers gave him the same feedback as they came together for the first time ahead of the 2026 series.
The co-host of ITV's Big Brother and the Hits Radio Breakfast Show is among the 15 celebrities taking to the dancefloor this year, with the BBC One dance contest set to return in September.
With over 15 years of broadcasting experience, Will began his screen career as a presenter on T4, with other TV work including roles on This Morning, BBC Three and Viva. Will was recently seen winning Celebrity Mastermind - with the specialist subject of Danny Dyer, whose daughter, Dani, is taking part in Strictly's 2026 run.
Will's Excitement and First Day
When he was announced as one of this year's contestants, Will said in a statement: "I can’t quite believe it…I’m doing Strictly! What an absolute dream. Albeit a pretty terrifying one. I’ve been lucky to do lots of live telly before, but absolutely nothing like this."
"And I cannot wait! I have no idea if I can actually dance, but bring on the sequins, bring on the quicksteps, bring on the dance floor! I’m going to try to enjoy every minute of it."
Last week, following the unveiling of Strictly's full celebrity line-up for 2026, the new contestants joined the professional dancers in rehearsals for the first time. It comes weeks after the pros heading back to work on the news series, with pre-recordings of the group routines for the series set to take place in the coming weeks.
Feedback from the Pros
Now, after his initiation into the world of Strictly, Will shared with his fellow presenter - and Strictly alumni - Fleur East what day one had been like.
During the Hits Radio Breakfast Show on Monday (August 17), Will told Fleur: "We had our first official day and it was really sweet. All the team, the producers did little speeches talking about how it’s a big family and everyone’s really nice and it did feel like that. I learnt a lot about myself in terms of how I dance - it’s obviously the first day I’d done any ballroom dancing, and the pros were there and we were doing little dance masterclasses with them."
He went on to explain: "They were seeing what the chemistry was like between the celebs and the pros to see who you might get paired with and all the male celebs would stand in a circle facing outwards and the female pros would dance with each of you really quickly for a few seconds, a few bars, and then theh move on to the next person going round in these circles."
Will added: "Two of the female pros commented on my ‘dancing face’, I didn’t realise that I dance more with my face than with my legs, and two of them separately and unprompted said ‘It’s like dancing with Jim Carrey in The Mask’. Two of them said the exact same thing!"
