By Katie Rosseinsky

Published: Saturday, 03 September 2022 at 12:00 am


A brand new season of The Masked Dancer is on the horizon, bringing with it a new group of 12 colourful characters showing off their dance skills while dressed in some truly weird and wonderful costumes. 

Behind each outlandish disguise is a celebrity, and it’s up to judges Jonathan Ross, Oti Mabuse, Davina McCall and Peter Crouch to channel their inner detectives and attempt to piece together the mystery, with the help of some cryptic clues. 

Just like on its sister show The Masked Singer, “there are no half measures” on The Masked Dancer, McCall says. “I think there is something about being behind a mask which means that a celebrity is less encumbered with self consciousness and will definitely kind of give 100 per cent in everything that they do and we’ve seen that in every series.” No one is taking themselves too seriously, and that’s all part of the fun.

Candlestick is among the dozen new contestants hoping to follow in the footsteps of last season’s winner, Olympic gymnast Louis Smith (aka Carwash). Will they tear up the dance floor in a disco inferno, or will they crash and burn? Here’s what we know so far about this mysterious character.

Who is The Masked Dancer’s Candlestick?

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Meet the contestants in The Masked Dancer’s second season
ITV

Secrecy is the name of the game in The Masked Dancer, with the behind-the-scenes team going to extreme lengths to preserve each contestant’s real identity, so it’s no surprise that very little has been revealed so far about Candlestick.

So what can we glean from their costume? Think along the lines of Beauty and the Beast’s Lumiere hitting the disco. The outfit features flared trousers in a bronze shade, with a structured skirt around the waist and long gloves. The candle headpiece certainly looks like it would be a real headache to dance in, so whoever’s lurking inside deserves serious kudos for navigating backing dancers and props while wearing it. 

According to the judges, this year’s contestants are starrier than ever, so all bets are off when it comes to the celebrity who has adopted Candlestick as their primetime alter ego. “There are some real surprises,” Ross said. 

“There is one person at least who when they get unmasked they were such a surprise because you’d have thought that they would have picked The Masked Singer, but they did it deliberately because they knew that we’d all think that. They had the panel stumped and none of us guessed them.” How intriguing… 

When does The Masked Dancer start?

You can catch Candlestick’s dancing debut over on ITV at 6:30pm on Saturday 3rd September. Let the guessing games begin.

The Masked Dancer is airing on ITV this autumn. To find out what else is on TV, check out our TV Guide or visit our hub for more Entertainment news.

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