The One Show in major shake up to celebrate Strictly star’s milestone birthday
The One Show is making a change to its usual format on Friday 11 October as the evening chat show throws a special party for TV legend Angela Rippon, who is celebrating her 80th birthday. The former newsreader and Come Dancing host has been working in TV for six decades, and last year became the oldest celebrity competitor on Strictly Come Dancing.
To celebrate her milestone birthday, The One Show will be marking her long career by looking back at some of the highlights, with clips from her iconic, leg-flashing appearance on The Morecambe and Wise Show’s Christmas special, as well as archive footage from her career as a broadcaster. Angela began her career appearing on radio and TV news programmes for regional BBC, before becoming a newsreader on BBC One’s Nine O’Clock News in 1975.
Angela has presented a variety of shows during her prestigious career, including Top Gear, Antiques Roadshow and Come Dancing, which was the BBC ballroom dancing competition that was reinvented years later as Strictly Come Dancing. She was also one of the co-presenters of the BBC’s coverage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding in 1981, and reported for the channel on the 1979 general election.
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More recently, Angela has become known for presenting daytime consumer series Rip-Off Britain, with Gloria Hunniford and Julia Somerville, and she also competed on Dancing on Ice in 2011 and Strictly Come Dancing in 2023, where she was paired with professional dancer Kai Widdrington. They were the eighth couple to be eliminated, following Blackpool week.
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A few surprises are expected for the birthday edition of The One Show, including cameos from people who have worked with Angela during her impressive career. In an exclusive interview with OK! in April this year, she spoke about her milestone birthday, saying: “I didn’t think I’d make it.”
“I said when I was 60 that was my last big party – probably because I didn’t think I’d ever get to 80,” she said. “But as I have, I’ll mark it with a party.”
She also spoke about the boundless energy she displayed when she was competing on Strictly last year. “My job isn’t like digging a trench, I’d never claim that,” she said. “But I’m on my feet for 12 hours a day. Luckily I’ve kept fit all my life. It’s part of my daily routine. I stretch every morning, I play tennis, I do Pilates and I go to ballet classes. And all that dancing over the last several months has made me even fitter than I was before.”
