Strictly star announced as latest cast member in Cardiff production

Amelia Jones

A Strictly Come Dancing star has starring role in new psychological thriller production in a Cardiff theatre.

Lewis Cope, who finished fifth on the BBC dance competition in 2025, has been announced as part of the cast of Strangers on a Train, which is coming to the New Theatre Cardiff in June 2027.

The former Emmerdale actor will play Charles Bruno, one of the central characters in the gripping psychological thriller based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling 1950 novel.

Bruno is a wealthy, manipulative and sinister character who meets fellow passenger Guy Haines on a train and comes up with a chilling proposal: they should each murder someone for the other.

Bruno believes the plan would allow them to get away with murder because neither would have an obvious motive for killing the other’s victim. However, what begins as an apparently casual conversation soon develops into a terrifying game of obsession, manipulation and deadly consequences.

The story was famously adapted into a film by legendary director Alfred Hitchcock in 1951, starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker.

Cope is best known to television audiences for playing Nicky Milligan in ITV soap Emmerdale. He joined the show in 2022 and was involved in a major storyline surrounding the Milligan and Tate families.

He became even more familiar to viewers through his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2025, where he was partnered with professional dancer Katya Jones. Their Halloween Couple’s Choice dance to Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ went viral on social media and earned them a perfect 40.

The pair impressed throughout the competition with their performances, making it to the quarter-finals before finishing in fifth place.

His new theatre role will see him take on a very different challenge, swapping the dance floor for the stage as he steps into the shoes of one of literature’s most unsettling characters.

Strangers on a Train will run at Cardiff’s New Theatre from June 2 to 5, 2027. You can find tickets here.