Strictly Come Dancing’s new presenting trio have revealed that even more major shake-ups are in store for the BBC show as they prepare to take over from Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly.

Emma Willis, Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe are getting ready to front the corporation’s flagship Saturday night entertainment programme, but their first major interview has made one thing particularly clear: nobody quite knows what the new Strictly format will look like yet.

The three presenters admitted that the decision to have a trio rather than another presenting duo was something of a “wild card” for producers, with the format still being developed just weeks before the live shows begin.

After more than a decade of Tess and Claudia working together, viewers might have expected the BBC to simply find two new presenters and give them similar responsibilities. Instead, bosses have opted for three very different personalities and appear to be allowing them to find their own rhythm.

Speaking on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Emma explained that there would be no straightforward replacement for the outgoing presenters.

“There’s no like for like, so no one’s kind of replacing anybody and at the minute it’s all very kind of open,” she said.

The former Big Brother presenter went on to reveal that the new team has already been involved in numerous production days as bosses attempt to work out exactly how they should operate together.

“We’re having lots of production days where we go in and we play around and we’re kind of feeling each other out – well, they’re feeling us out really,” Emma explained.

It means that, despite the enormous attention surrounding their appointments, the presenters themselves are still discovering what their jobs will involve.

Josh had a particularly memorable way of describing the approach, comparing the new presenting team to a football tactic.

“It’s going to be like total football, Richard. We’re going to be moving everywhere,” he told podcast host Richard Osman.

The comparison suggests viewers may not see the traditional division of responsibilities that became so familiar during Tess and Claudia’s 11-year partnership.

Instead of one presenter being permanently stationed in the main ballroom and another occupying a specific area, Emma, Josh and Johannes could move around the show depending on what is happening.

That could mean a far more fluid Strictly, with all three presenters interacting with contestants, professionals and judges throughout the evening.

Emma also took the opportunity to dismiss one of the most persistent rumours surrounding Johannes.

Despite widespread speculation that the former Strictly professional dancer would take on a backstage reporting role, she confirmed that this is “definitely” not happening.

The revelation is particularly significant because Johannes seemed like an obvious candidate for the job. He already knows the dancers and contestants, understands the pressure of competing and has spent years appearing in front of the Strictly cameras.

Yet the trio insisted that viewers should not expect to see him wandering around backstage as a traditional roving reporter.

The uncertainty surrounding the new format is perhaps unsurprising given the unusual circumstances of the casting process.

Emma, Josh and Johannes revealed that the auditions were an exhausting four-month affair and were conducted under an extraordinary level of secrecy.

Josh described the whole experience as “cloak and dagger” and even compared it to The Traitors.

The BBC was apparently so determined to prevent news of the auditions from leaking that producers invented an entirely fictional programme to explain where candidates were going.

The fake show was called The Great Garden Glow Up.

Josh explained that potential drivers were apparently told that the passengers were being taken to auditions for a gardening programme.

“We were told if the driver asked, he’d been told it was a show about gardening called The Great Garden Glow Up,” he said.

Emma confirmed just how elaborate the cover story had become.

“So they created a whole new name for a show. Created a whole new show… They said for the cab drivers,” she explained.

For Josh, the situation became even more amusing because he could not imagine anyone believing that he would willingly attend an audition for such a programme.

“I did feel like saying to my agent, ‘I wouldn’t have gone to The Great Garden Glow Up chemistry test,’” he joked.

“I am in the back of the car and there is a cabbie who is judging me. Because he thinks I would present a show called The Great Garden Glow Up.”

The bizarre secrecy surrounding the auditions illustrates just how carefully the BBC handled the search for the new Strictly presenters.

Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman had become such an integral part of the programme that the question of who could possibly replace them was always going to generate huge speculation.

Several familiar broadcasting names were reportedly involved in the process, with Zoe Ball and Sara Cox both later revealing that they had taken part in the secret auditions but ultimately did not land the roles.

Emma, Josh and Johannes confirmed that they too had chemistry tests with a number of potential presenting combinations.

Initially, the three were auditioned separately.

It was only later that producers began bringing different candidates together to see whether their personalities worked on screen.

Then came the unexpected moment when Emma, Josh and Johannes were placed in the same room.

Josh admitted that he was genuinely surprised when Johannes walked through the door.

“You’ve seen the papers. So you presume those are the people in the mix. And so you think ‘oh it’s probably one of these people’. And then Jojo walked in,” he recalled.

His immediate reaction was that the combination seemed unusual.

“I’d say both of us thought that’s a weird combo,” Josh admitted.

Johannes agreed that there had been a moment of confusion.

“There was a moment of that wasn’t it?” he said.

“We were like what is going on here? Because we didn’t know that the three of us were going to end up in the room.”

The fact that even the presenters did not know the trio was being considered together makes their eventual appointment all the more surprising.

It appears the BBC itself was taking a significant gamble.

Emma revealed that when the three were called back together, bosses explicitly told them that this was the final stage and described the idea of having three presenters as a “wild card”.

“We’re just like, ‘What happens if we do three?’” Emma recalled.

According to her, producers then admitted that they did not even have a finished script for the experiment.

“And they said, ‘It’s so much of a wild card, we don’t really have a script for you either. So we’re going to sit down, get it up on the screen and we’ll have a little tinker all together.’”

It was a remarkable admission considering they were auditioning for one of the BBC’s biggest shows.

Rather than presenting a finished format to the candidates, the producers were effectively asking them to help discover what the format could become.

For a programme as established as Strictly, that represents a dramatic departure from the norm.

The show has spent years perfecting the balance between dancing, judging, celebrity interviews, backstage reactions and comedy. Tess and Claudia’s roles became increasingly defined during their time together, with Tess traditionally guiding the main programme while Claudia created her own distinctive atmosphere around the couples waiting for their scores.

Now that familiar structure is being dismantled.

And there is another major difference awaiting viewers when the show returns.

The 2026 series will feature five new professional dancers after the departures of Karen Hauer, Gorka Marquez, Nadiya Bychkova, Luba Mushtuk and Michelle Tsiakkas.

The changes mean that Emma, Josh and Johannes are not simply arriving to front the same Strictly viewers have known for years.

They are becoming the faces of a programme that is being refreshed across several areas at once.

There is also a significant change to the launch show, with this year’s celebrities set to discover their professional partners in the Strictly ballroom rather than through the pre-recorded pairing segments used in recent years.

Among the celebrities preparing to compete are EastEnders star Lacey Turner and Australian singer Delta Goodrem, adding further anticipation to what is already shaping up to be a highly scrutinised series.

For Emma, Josh and Johannes, the pressure is enormous.

Replacing Tess and Claudia would have been difficult enough with two presenters. Doing it with three, while the BBC is simultaneously changing elements of the format, creates an entirely different challenge.

But their interviews suggest they are not trying to pretend that everything will immediately feel familiar.

Instead, they appear to be embracing the uncertainty.

Even their own path to the Strictly ballroom was unconventional.

After four months of secret auditions, fake programme titles and chemistry tests with different combinations of presenters, the trio eventually received the call confirming that they had secured the jobs.

Yet there was nothing particularly glamorous about the moment they found out.

Emma revealed that she took the Zoom call while sitting on the toilet at the hairdressers.

Josh, meanwhile, was “in a graveyard in Birmingham”.

It is hardly the sort of glamorous beginning one might expect for the people about to inherit one of the most recognisable television presenting jobs in Britain.

But perhaps it is fitting.

The new Strictly era is clearly not going to be a simple recreation of what came before.

Emma, Josh and Johannes are not Tess, Claudia and a third person filling an empty space.

They are a completely new combination, with producers apparently willing to experiment with where they stand, what they do and how they interact.

That uncertainty could prove to be the biggest risk of the 2026 series.

Strictly viewers are famously attached to the traditions of the programme, and any change to a beloved formula is likely to attract scrutiny.

But it could also become the show’s biggest strength.

With three hosts free to move around the ballroom, a former professional dancer bringing an insider’s perspective, a comedian providing a different energy and Emma bringing years of television experience, the BBC has created a presenting team unlike any previous Strictly combination.

And because even the hosts admit they are still “feeling each other out”, viewers will effectively get to watch the new partnership develop in real time.

After the emotional departure of Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, Strictly could have played it safe.

Instead, it appears to be taking a gamble.

The result will be revealed when the new trio finally step into the ballroom and begin their first series together.

If the “Total Football” theory is anything to go by, they will not be staying in one place for long.

And after four months of secret auditions, fake gardening shows, unexpected chemistry tests and a presenting format that was still being worked out by the people hired to front it, the biggest Strictly shake-up in years is finally ready to begin.