Tony Irving

Anthony Spencer "Tony" Irving, born 5 July 1966 in Britain, is a judge in the Swedish private TV channel TV4's Let's Dance [http://www.tv4.se/noje/lets_dance] programme - based on the British Strictly Come Dancing format. He is immensely popular in Sweden and, although he speaks Swedish confidently and fluently, he speaks it with a pronounced British (as the Swedish say but actually "Scottish") accent and has a number of distinctive mannerisms and expressions. For example, he tends to give his positive comments first, followed a pronounced "MEN"!" (BUT!) before being critical. He is therefore much imitated by impressionists and comedians in Sweden - most successfully by Robert Gustavsson. He presented the QX Gaygalan Swedish "Gays of the Year Awards" in 2008.

"Irving" was born and brought up in Scotland but moved to Sweden in 1993, when he was a judge in the Swedish Dance Championships. He worked as a dance teacher in a college (Högalidsskolan) in Stockholm. He also ran a dance school in Stockholm and Sundsvall. In May 2007, he and another dance teacher Johan Andersson, along with "Folkliv" [http://www.folkliv.se] set up an interactive dance school on the web called crazyfordance.com. [http://www.crazyfordance.com] .

External links

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R_Aai5AUUI|Tony Tony Irving speaking Swedish]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G5o1DUKJBo&feature=related|Robert Gustavsson as Tony]