The full tour line-up has been announced

Strictly Come Dancing makes surprise Amy Dowden announcement after sad exit

by · DevonLive

Strictly Come Dancing fans will be thrilled to learn that Amy Dowden will return for the arena tour next year.

The professional dancer had to withdraw from this year's competition due to injury, but she's ready to grace the dance floor once more. It has been announced that Amy will partner with JB Gill for the tour. The JLS star will share his dances between Amy and Lauren Oakley throughout the 30-show tour.

The full line-up for the highly anticipated shows has now been revealed. Alongside Lauren, Amy, and JB, the performing couples will include Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas, Montell Douglas and Kai Widdrington, Wynne Evans and Katya Jones, Tasha Ghouri and Aljaz Skorjanec, Sarah Hadland and Vito Coppola and Shayne Ward and Nancy Xu.

Amy danced with JB at the start of the series(Image: PA)

Dianne Buswell, Karen Hauer, Neil Jones, Nikita Kuzmin, Jowita Przystal plus Robbie Kmetoni and Jake Leigh, will also be there to entertain the audience during the live tour. Judges Shirley Ballas, Anton Du Beke, Craig Revel Horwood will be present, with Motsi Mabuse making her tour debut. It Takes Two's Janette Manrara rounds off the impressive line-up, reports the Mirror.

Discussing the forthcoming tour and Amy Dowden's participation, Janette said, "Wow—what an incredible line-up of couples we have on the tour next year! Arena audiences around the country are in for a real treat.

"It's going to be a blast to be back with all the pros and, as an extra special treat, it will be a joy to welcome back the lovely Amy Dowden. Get ready for an evening of pure Strictly entertainment for the whole family - bigger and better than ever before!"

Despite the impressive line-up, one notable omission is that of champion Chris McCausland, who won't be participating in the tour.

Amy suffered an injury and had to pull out of the show(Image: BBC)

He said yesterday: "It's been a really emotional Saturday night and I'm still feeling quite worn down by it. It's been three and a half months; it's relentless. It's consuming - physically and mentally, it takes a toll. This is what the show does, it wears you down physically and mentally and then it pokes you with a stick until you cry in front of everybody.

"I started my tour in January this year, and I did the first leg until May, and I was meant to be back out in September. We moved the dates to accommodate Strictly, so we just moved them to January. We had to move these dates to accommodate Strictly and it just wasn't a consideration at the time... I don't think anybody thought I would be any good at it."

He added: "I don't think they thought it, I don't think I thought it. And in terms of going on tour in January, I didn't think I'd be going on tour on the back of Strictly. I thought I'd have about two months off."

The 2025 Strictly tour will kick off at Birmingham's Utilita Arena on January 17 before making its way around the UK.