Strictly Come Dancing has revealed the full list of songs and dances for the first live show of the 2026 series.
The 15 celebrity contestants and their professional partners will take to the ballroom on Saturday night, following last weekend’s launch show which revealed this year’s pairings.
Opening performances
Among the opening performances, actress Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu will take on a quickstep to Stop This Flame by Celeste. Delta Goodrem and Kai Widdrington will perform a samba to Baiana by Barbatuques, while actress Jaime Winstone and reigning champion Carlos Gu will dance the tango to Donna Summer’s I Feel Love.
EastEnders star Lacey Turner and Vito Coppola will perform a cha cha to Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know. Actress Melanie Walters and Aljaz Skorjanec will also take on a cha cha, dancing to Elton John and Kiki Dee’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.
More pairings revealed
Paralympic champion Dame Sarah Storey and Julian Caillon will perform a quickstep to C’est Magnifique by Kay Starr, while Olympian Tabby Stoecker and Mark Karmalita will tackle a jive to Animal by KATSEYE. Love Island winner Cach Mercer and Maddie Ingoldsby will perform a quickstep to Bruno Mars’ I Just Might.
Elsewhere, Chris Appleton and Amy Dowden will dance a tango to No Roots by Alice Merton, while Graeme Hall, known for Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly, and Lauren Oakley will perform a cha cha to the Smokey Joe’s Cafe version of Hound Dog.
Social media personality John Nellis and Katya Jones will take on a foxtrot to Alex Warren’s Ordinary, while Emmerdale star Lawrence Robb and Jowita Przystal will perform a paso doble to Harry Styles’ Aperture. Former England footballer Shaun Wright-Phillips and Alexis Warr will dance a cha cha to Lil Boo Thang by Paul Russell.
Group routine and viewing figures
It was also confirmed earlier this week that former Love Island winner Dani Dyer-Bowen will perform a samba with Nikita Kuzmin, while TV presenter Will Best and Dianne Buswell will also take on a samba, dancing to Robbie Williams’ Rock DJ.
The opening show will begin with the judges, professional dancers and presenters Emma Willis, Johannes Radebe and Josh Widdicombe performing a group routine to an orchestral version of Raye’s Joy.
The first live show follows a strong start for the new series, with a peak audience of 5.8 million tuning in for last Saturday’s launch. According to BBC overnight figures, the launch attracted a peak audience 200,000 higher than last year’s opening show.
The 2026 series is the first to feature new presenting trio Willis, Radebe and Widdicombe, following Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman’s departure from the show last year. Strictly Come Dancing returns for its first live show on Saturday at 6.15pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
