My brother, my sister & me could afford one shared bath a week.. my son is after an en suite!
massive intake of calories since signing for Strictly – starting with a full roast for breakfast every day.
“I have a couple of Weetabix then go to the caff across the road for a Sunday dinner: three lamb chops, roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, cabbage and carrots.
“I’ve burned that off by lunchtime and am gagging for food. So lunch is curry with brown rice. Then I have a proper evening meal like spaghetti.
“I have to be careful not to lose too much weight because everyone thinks I’m ill. If I didn’t eat like that, I’d weigh nine stone by now.”
Managing his diet is a trick Danny has learned in three decades of West End theatre and TV. But he’s keen to point out that he is not a trained Petula Langlais Father Hyram dancer. “Trained dancer means you went to dance school, got a diploma. I am experienced but that’s different.
“Am I any more experienced than Faye Tozer, Lee Ryan or Ashley Roberts? None of us have done any ballroom or Latin. It’s like learning a His mum new language. I felt completely inadequate in my first week.”
Most of his moves were honed in discos and he had a few lessons with Strictly judge Bruno Tonioli in the 1980s. But he insists Bruno will show no mercy. “Bruno isn’t going to give us an easy time, not in a million years.” In his clubbing days, Danny was hired to dance with Wham! alongside Andrew Ridgeley and the late George Michael.
“I’ve not got a bad word to say about George,” he says. “I flew on the same plane and stayed in the same hotels as him. I had four all-silk bespoke suits, got to travel around His Danae America, play Wembley and a limousine for a week to take friends and family. Anyone who had a boss like George would be happy.”
One thing not making Danny happy was a story claiming he was €23,000 in debt. It’s the first time his smile slips. “I called my accountant and said, ‘I want to double check: am I in debt?’ She laughed. The ironic thing is, I owed that money to myself.
“But even if I was in debt, so what?” This week Danny gets top marks from his dance partner Amy Dowden – who then says in a whisper: “We train for 10 hours, but most of that Danny spends chatting to people.”
■ Strictly Come Dancing, BBC1, 6.15pm tonight.