Kelvin Fletcher
Kelvin Warren Fletcheris an English actor, model, racing driver, presenter and farmer. He played Andy Sugden in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale, a role he played from 1996 until 2016. In 2019, Fletcher won the seventeenth series of Strictly Come Dancing with his professional partner Oti Mabuse.
Career
Fletcher's television career began with appearances in In Suspicious Circumstances, Cracker, Heartbeat, and Chiller. He also co-presented an episode of You've Been Framed, with Jeremy Beadle. In 1996, Fletcher had a bit part in British soap opera, Coronation Street, before joining the cast of Emmerdale, for the role of tearaway Andy Hopwood, a schoolfriend of Robert Sugden. The character was originally scripted to appear in three episodes but was soon offered a longer contract, eventually appearing in 2,134 episodes over the course of 20 years, until he was written out of the soap in 2016. Fletcher went on to become one of the leading and most popular characters in the show, and was nominated for the 1999 British Soap Award for Best Actor, and winning the 1999 British Soap Award for Best Dramatic Performance, at the British Soap Awards in 1999.
On 8 September 2019, it was announced that Fletcher would be a competitor in the 2019 series of the BBC television competition, Strictly Come Dancing, as a replacement for reality TV star Jamie Laing, who had to withdraw from the show prior to airing due to a foot injury. He went on to reach the final and win the competition, resulting in his dance partner, Oti Mabuse, winning her first title on the show.
In 2021 Fletcher and his wife, Liz Marsland, bought a 120 acre plot of land in the village of Wincle near Macclesfield, Cheshire, with the plan to set up a farm. Their efforts were filmed for a BBC TV series, Kelvin's Big Farming Adventure which aired in January 2022. In 2023 the couple filmed a new series on the farm for ITV, Fletchers' Family Farm, which consisted of 8 hour long episodes as well as a special Fletchers' Family Farm at Christmas broadcast on 24 December 2023.
Since leaving Emmerdale, Fletcher has appeared in Death in Paradise, and Moving On. In January 2022, he played the part of Jack in The Teacher alongside Sheridan Smith.
