Christopher Biggins to join Dancing on Ice tour

Christopher Biggins to join Dancing on Ice tour (Image credit: PA Archive/PA Photos)

Christopher Biggins is to judge the Dancing On Ice live tour. The panto star, who won I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! in 2007, has never competed in the TV skating show and showed he was a terrible dancer when he took part in Let's Dance For Comic Relief last year. But he and ex-rugby player Kyran Bracken, winner of Dancing On Ice in 2007, will join TV judges Karen Barber and Nicky Slater on the judging panel when the 25-date tour begins in Sheffield on April 8. Headlining the tour, along with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, will be former Emmerdale star Hayley Tamaddon, who is the bookmakers' favourite to win this year's show, The Inbetweeners' Emily Atack, Boyzone's Mikey Graham, The Bill's Gary Lucy and previous finalist Clare Buckfield. They join former winners Gaynor Faye and Ray Quinn and ex-finalist Chris Fountain, touring venues around the UK throughout April and May. The format of the tour is the same as previous years and as in the hit ITV1 show, the audience will be able to use their mobile phone to text vote for their favourite dancing couple. The votes will then be added to the scores from the judges to decide the winner. Once the votes have been counted, the winning celebrity will join their skating partner to perform a magical finale. As with the previous tours, all profits from text voting will go to charity. More than £80,000 has been raised to date.

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.