Alex Kingston is the third celebrity contestant announced for Strictly Come Dancing 2025

Doctor Who and ER star Alex Kingston has been announced as the second celebrity taking part in the new series of Strictly Come Dancing. The multi-award-winning entertainment show, produced by BBC Studios, will return to BBC One and BBC iPlayer for its new series this September.

Alex Kingston has been a star of stage and screen for more than four decades, gaining international fame as Dr Elizabeth Corday in the global hit TV drama ER for eight years, winning a SAG award in the process. She is known to millions of Doctor Who fans as the iconic River Song, aka The Doctor’s Wife, a role she has played opposite three Doctors on screen and continues in audio adventure and novel form.

Other television work includes a BAFTA-nominated performance as Moll Flanders, plus roles in Douglas Is Cancelled, Treason, Gilmore Girls, Boudica, Lost in Austen, Dodger, A Discovery of Witches, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Arrow. Her extensive theatre roles range from playing Lady Macbeth, to Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Prospero for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and many many more.

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On joining Strictly Come Dancing, Alex Kingston says: ”Aaaaagghhh!!!!!!”

The news was revealed on The One Show on Monday 11 August. The remaining celebrity contestants joining the new series will be announced in due course.

Strictly Come Dancing is a BBC Studios Entertainment production for BBC One and BBC iPlayer and was commissioned by Kalpna Patel-Knight, Head of Entertainment at the BBC. The Executive Producer is Sarah James, the Series Editors are Nicola Fitzgerald and Jack Gledhill. The Commissioning Editor for the BBC is Jo Wallace.

Strictly Come Dancing will return to BBC One and BBC iPlayer this September. Add Strictly to your watchlist on BBC iPlayer now.

GK

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