BBC Strictly legend reveals major career change with Loose Women star

-Credit: (Image: BBC/Guy Levy)
-Credit: (Image: BBC/Guy Levy)


As the stars fear up for Strictly 2024, one former dancing legend is embarking on a new career focus. Kevin Clifton announced on 6 March 2020 that he wouldn't be returning to Strictly.

He has been focused on other ventures - and has a new one coming up with an ITV star. He will be joining the cast of the Chicago musical which is embarking on a UK and Ireland tour.

It will also feature Loose Women's Brenda Edwards.

Read more: Strictly 2024 feud

Set in the 1920s, this jazz musical stars former Coronation Street actress Faye Brookes as nightclub singer Roxie Hart, with West End sensation Djalenga Scott playing her prison rival Velma Kelly.

Joining them will be Edwards as Mama Morton and Clifton as lawyer Billy Flynn, while Joshua Lloyd takes on the role of Amos Hart and Jordan Lee Davies portrays Mary Sunshine.

The curtain rises on October 12 at Milton Keynes Theatre, with the show set to run until August 2025. The tour will make stops in Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin, Cardiff, and many other cities across the UK and Ireland.

Chicago spins the tale of housewife and singer Roxie Hart, who kills her lover after he threatens to abandon her. She hires renowned criminal lawyer Billy Flynn, who manages to twist the narrative of her crime, leading to Roxie experiencing fame as a byproduct of her trial.

The cast is completed by Bethany Adamson, Victoria Anderson, Josh Crowther, Joe Dale, Jessica Keable, Robin Kent, Annabelle Laing, Jacob McLay Reid, Jonathan Milton, George Olney, Oliver Ramsdale, Elly Shaw, Lucy Anne Stacey, Matthew Sweet and Ria Tanaka.

Ticket prices start from £15 and can be purchased immediately.

The 1975 musical, an adaptation of a 1926 play of the same name, made its big screen debut in a 2002 movie directed by Rob Marshall and starring Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly, and Richard Gere as Billy Flynn.