Some truly frantic meetings are taking place right now at Broadcasting House, the BBC’s famous London headquarters near Regent Street.

With just weeks to go to complete the celebrity line-up for this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, the show’s bosses are in agonies as they try to work out who to hire.

So far so normal, you might think. Except that this year, the process is nail-bitingly, tortuously chaotic thanks to anxious directives beamed down right from the very top.

None of the stars they hire as contestants must bring the long-running show into disrepute, the producers have been told.

As Strictly bosses are all too painfully aware, the past two series have been blemished by scandals which overshadowed a series regarded by the whole BBC as the jewel in its crown.

Then this weekend, just when they didn’t think things could get any worse, BBC chiefs were made aware of a disgraceful video obtained by The Sun in which Jamie Borthwick, a contestant from last year – and, more embarrassingly for the Beeb, an actor on their flagship soap EastEnders – uses a slur against disabled people.

Thirty-year-old Borthwick, who has played Jay Brown on EastEnders since 2006, is seen using the term ‘m********s’ to describe the residents of Blackpool, where the Strictly team spent a week filming for the annual ‘special’ episode last November.

Jamie Borthwick and Michelle Tsiakkas

Eyebrows had already been raised when Wynne Evans was seen putting his hand on dance partner Katya Jones’s waist before she pushed it away last year

Borthwick apologised profusely on Saturday night, saying in a statement: ‘It’s no excuse, but I did not fully understand the derogatory term I used and its meaning.’ But he was suspended from EastEnders while corporation bosses investigate.

This is the second inquiry the BBC has mounted into stars from last year’s series.

Just ten days ago it emerged that opera singer and presenter Wynne Evans had parted company with the broadcaster following a crude ‘spit-roast’ comment aimed at professional dancer and It Takes Two host Janette Manrara.

Eyebrows had already been raised when Evans, who hosted a daily show on BBC Radio Wales – but initially found fame fronting the Go Compare television adverts – was seen putting his hand on dance partner Katya Jones’s waist before she pushed it away.

He was axed following an investigation that went wider than his behaviour on Strictly.

The 2023 series was also marred by controversy.

Actress Amanda Abbington claimed that dance partner Giovanni Pernice – one of Strictly’s professionals – had bullied her, promoting a review by the BBC Human Resources department. Pernice was cleared of the worst allegations.

In that same run, another professional, Graziano di Prima, was sacked after kicking his celebrity partner and TV personality Zara McDermott during rehearsals.

No wonder there’s mounting concern in Broadcasting House about the celebrity line-up for the show, which launches its latest season in September.

‘There is a terrible, terrible fear among those high up that these awful things are going to keep happening and the show will be brought into disrepute again and again,’ said one BBC insider.‘With that in mind, they are taking no chances. There will be stringent checks, and asking around, and digging into potential stars’ backgrounds to make sure that they’re not choosing anyone who might damage the show.

‘For years, there was the whole Strictly “curse” where the contestants and professionals kept having affairs. But that stopped. Changes were made to the partnerships and it worked.

‘There have been other issues in the past couple of years, though. What’s been even more embarrassing for the BBC is that Wynne and Jamie have been from their own stable of stars.

‘Going forward, those at the top want a wholesome image to shine through. No more scandal – just joy.’

Borthwick and Miss Tsiakkas performing on Strictly last year

Bosses hope that their quest to clean things up will be helped by their appointment of a new talent booker. Jasmine Fox, a BBC employee for a number of years, has taken over from Stefania Aleksander, who left a few months ago after seven years in the job.

Aleksander was known for forming close friendships with some celebrities during their time on the show – and beyond.

Fox is said to be keen to find ‘clean-cut and wholesome’ contestants and I’m told that two celebrities currently in contention are Blue Peter presenters Joel Mawhinney and Shini Muthukrishnan.

The pair have been secretly dating for a year, as the Mail recently revealed.

‘You don’t get much more wholesome than two Blue Peter presenters, especially when they’re in a relationship and are both just so adorable,’ said my insider. The chances of them causing any trouble are very, very slim. Their appearance would also give Blue Peter a much-needed boost – which would be very helpful for the BBC.’

The Queen’s son, Tom Parker Bowles, and celebrity Jungle queen Georgia Toffolo are said to be in talks about Strictly, as is Girls Aloud singer Nicola Roberts. Others still in the frame include former Love Island star Dani Dyer and former Coronation Street actress Helen Flanagan.

Meanwhile, BBC chatter is suggesting that the show has struggled to find a head publicist – whose duties include managing the media – following the past two years of scandal. Perhaps this is no surprise.

‘The woman who did it last year doesn’t want it,’ a BBC source tells me. ‘It must be a nightmare of a job with all of the fall-out.

‘The Wynne and Katya hand issue was a huge, huge nightmare for the press team. It became a briefing war, with people going rogue and sharing details. It was awful.

‘Then, someone else who they hoped would do the publicist job defected to ITV so, basically, they haven’t been able to appoint anyone. ‘It feels like it has been one thing after another for the last couple of years, which is such a shame.’

It was claimed that Strictly struggled to sign female contestants for last year’s series following Di Prima’s high-profile sacking and the investigation into Pernice.

Some within the corporation are saying, privately, that the BBC’s relentless promotion of Strictly has made a rod for its own back.

Strictly has become so important, they suggest, that it’s now subject to an almost impossible level of scrutiny.

And that, in turn, has made it even harder to get the right contestants.

But a BBC insider insisted the show remains in good health despite recent controversies.

‘It is an honour to appear on Strictly,’ she said. ‘It is the biggest show in the country, it is such a big deal to get a place on it. It has the ability to make people’s careers if they do it all well.’

Though as in the case of EastEnders’ Jamie Borthwick, it appears it can also have quite the opposite effect.