Cynthia Erivo replaces Craig Revel Horwood for Strictly’s Musicals Week

Picture: Vivienne Vincent

Grammy, Tony and Emmy Award winner Cynthia Erivo has been drafted in to replace Covid-hit Craig Revel Horwood on the judging panel for Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing Musicals Week show.

With Revel Horwood missing the popular Saturday night show for the first time after testing positive for Covid-19, the actress who is also due to co-host  the Black British Theatre Awards ceremony in London this weekend will cast her eye over the remaining seven couples alongside regular judges Shirley Ballas, Anton Du Beke and Motsi Mabuse.

Erivo starred in the critically-acclaimed 2013 Menier Chocolate Factory production of The Color Purple in London and on Broadway where she won the 2016 Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical.

Soon to be seen as the Blue Fairy in director Robert Zemeckis’ live-action adaptation of Disney’s Pinocchio with Tom Hanks and Luke Evans, it was recently announced that Erivo had won the coveted role of Elphaba alongside Ariane Grande’s Glinda in the long-awaited movie version of Wicked.

Strictly’s Musicals Week will feature: AJ Odudu and Kai Widdrington dancing the Waltz to ‘Edelweiss’ from The Sound of Music; Rose Ayling-Ellis and Giovanni Pernice performing the Quickstep to ‘Love Is An Open Door’ from Frozen; Couple’s Choice dances from Tilly Ramsay and Nikita Kuzmin to ‘Revolting Children’ from Matilda and Tom Fletcher and Amy Dowden to ‘On My Own’ from Les Misérables; with Dan Walker and Nadia Bychkova dancing a Charleston to ‘Good Morning’ from Singin’ in the Rain, John Whaite and Johannes Radebe with a Viennese Waltz danced to ‘Chim Cher-ee’ from Mary Poppins and Rhys Stephenson and Nancy Xu dancing the Jive to the title song from Footloose.

Angela Thomas