Robot Wars: Battle Of The Stars Unveiled

BBC Two has announced details of two celebrity special episodes of Robot Wars.

Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars will see famous faces including Scott Mills, Suzi Perry, Robbie Savage and Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee taking part. Each episode will be an hour long where four celebrity teams will design their dream robot and compete against each other in the arena.

The teams consist of Robot Wars fans and alongside their team mates, they will be guided by an experienced roboteer from the series to mentor them through the competition.

Welsh football pundit and former player Robbie Savage will be joined by mentor Jason Marston from Team Thor; singer Jordan Stephens will be joined by mentor John Reid from team Terrorhurtz; archaeologist, historian, author and presenter Neil Oliver joins forces with mentor Will Thomas from Team Shockwave; and Paralympian Kadeena Cox will compete with her mentor Ellis Ware from Team Pulsar.

In the second episode, Olympic and World Championship winning medalists Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee will be mentored by Gabriel Stroud from Team Sabretooth; space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, MBE, is assisted by mentor Shane Swan from Team Dantonkia; TV presenter Suzi Perry takes advice from mentor Suren Balendran from Team Supernova, while Radio 1 presenters Scott Mills and Chris Stark, team up with mentor Dave Moulds from Team Carbide.

Robbie Savage said: "I am a big fan of Robot Wars so I am really excited to get into the arena and experience the fights first hand. Flipper robots did really well in the series so I hope our robot doesn't let us down and flips the competition out of the arena once and for all."

Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee added: "Robot Wars was one of our favourite shows when we were growing up, so to be on the show is fulfilling a childhood dream of ours. It will be a nice change working as a team rather than competing against each other and we hope we can add a Robot Wars: Battle of the Stars title to our collection of medals."

Suzi Perry says: "I've waited a long time for this. Tech, tactics and titanium all rolled into one battleground – Robot Wars special, it should be such fun. I've designed the robot, now it's all down to gadget warfare and I can't wait to get into the arena to take on my opponents."

The series has been commissioned by BBC Two Channel Editor, Patrick Holland, Controller of Entertainment Commissioning, Kate Phillips, and Alan Tyler, BBC Commissioning Editor.

Produced by Mentorn Scotland in association with SJP Media, it will be executive produced by Andrew Robertson, Head of Entertainment for Mentorn Media and Alan Tyler for the BBC.

The hour-long episodes will air on BBC TWO on December 28 and 29, 2016.

www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre

(JP)