His top tips for winning ‘Strictly’
As a new line-up of celebrities takes to the dance floor, Ed Balls reveals how he made the most of an ‘utterly brilliant’ experience
Huddled around their television sets at home, surrounded by friends and family, there are going to be 15 fairly tense, faintly terrified celebrities this evening. For the contestants involved in this year’s Strictly Come Dancing, the launch show – filmed earlier in the week – is the first and only time they’ll get to watch themselves dance at the same time as the rest of the nation. It’s going to feel very strange.
I remember beginning my Strictly journey like it was yesterday, and I’m a little bit jealous of the class of 2017 now. They will have met everybody in rehearsals, experienced the weirdness of their first ballroom costume fitting, and tentatively begun some training. Other than that, they won’t have done anything quite like it in their lives. It’s a complete step into the unknown.
I was approached to take part in the spring of 2016, immediately thinking it was a ludicrous idea. Once I got home and told my wife, Yvette Cooper, about the offer, she told me I couldn’t possibly turn it down. Politics being so strange in 2016, she said I might as well get fit, lose weight and do something entirely out of my comfort zone instead. So I gave a tentative “yes”, which became confirmed once the madness of the EU Referendum was over.
There were ground rules, though: namely, I would not be wearing anything spangly, anything tight, and I would categorically not be getting a fake tan.
At the end of that summer, I went for lunch with Jeremy Vine, the BBC presenter who became the unexpected audience favourite of Strictly in 2015, to ask for some tips. “Get a spray tan,” he told me. I’d heard of sunbeds, but standing in a cubicle in your underwear, getting coated in lacquer? I didn’t even know they were a real thing. Fortunately, when I did cave, I didn’t fall for the same prank as Jeremy – they told him the idea was to get totally naked, so he did.
Jeremy told me Strictly was the best thing he had ever done, and I said the same to the Reverend Richard Coles – one of the incoming crop and someone who will very possibly enrol in the Vine-balls School of Dad Dancing – when he texted me looking for some soothing words, recently.
Before Strictly, my dancing experience amounted to some latenight jiggling at parties. I don’t wish I’d trained more beforehand – part of the point is for the audience to see how you improve from scratch.
In my mind’s eye, I looked about two stone lighter and a good decade younger than I was. I thought I’d be in the middle of the pack, but when I met people like Danny Mac, who was not only hugely handsome but also proved to be a fantastic dancer, I realised I was very much at the bottom. One of the first contestants I was introduced to was the gymnast Claudia Fragapane, who asked me how old my children were. “17, 15 and 12,” I told her. “Oh,” she replied, “so your eldest is only a year younger than me!”
Contestants will meet their partners tonight, too. The moment Claudia and Tess pair people up really is the first time you know, so we all tried to work it out. Tall with tall? Older with younger? Having danced together in rehearsals, Oti Mabuse and I were convinced we had each other, so when she was named with Danny Mac, it was a bit of a shock. I expect it was relief on her part. In the end, my partner, Katya Jones, was a godsend. A harsh taskmaster, yes, but hugely talented and the only reason I got anywhere.
We met the professionals for a rehearsal a week before the launch show last year. The BBC told us to arrive in “leisurewear”, of which I owned precisely none, so I went out and bought an outfit – tracksuit bottoms and a blue sports shirt. Everyone else wore black, which made sense to me once the exercise started and the lights shone.
A huge sweat patch developed on my shirt, making me look doubly unfit, as the rest were disguised by their dark clothing. I spent half the time hiding behind Daisy Lowe, hoping no camera caught me.
Getting over the embarrassment is an essential part of the experience. In the first group dance, I looked like a beer barrel. I’ve had some fairly unflattering photographs printed of me during my career – dancing with Keith Vaz in a flower garland at
‘Michael Gove would fling himself into it, which would be a sight to behold’
party conference, playing football in my shorts – but nothing like the ballroom get-up.
In the end, my “no sparkle” rule didn’t last. By week three I was in a yellow suit and The Mask make-up, and I ended up as a cowboy and a medieval knight, with plenty of Lycra and sequins in between. Once I put aside “Ed Balls, former cabinet minister”, I started to love it. I took every week as it came, and still cannot believe I made it to Blackpool.
The training is undeniably gruelling. Physically, eight hours a day is tough, especially if you have to appear on the Today programme to talk Brexit in the meantime, but the biggest toll of all is on your mind. The concentration required to learn steps, nail the timing, think about facial expressions – it’s draining. There were a couple of times when I said to Katya, “I can’t do this any more,” but she would give me one of her “inspirational” withering looks, and I’d soon be back on my feet.
I’d return home exhausted every night, but my family were invaluable – I could show Yvette and the kids our video rehearsals, and they’d always pick up on the improvements. Except when I played them Gangnam Style, that is. Fifteen minutes of silence met that clip.
People told me I was mad to do Strictly – my dad, my brother, Gordon Brown – but all of them came round as the series went on. As did strangers, who would come up to me in the street with a big smile, slap me on the back and say, “I used to hate you when you were in politics.”
I’d recommend Strictly to any politician. I’m still waiting for George Osborne to make time to appear, and I could imagine Ruth Davidson being brilliant. Michael Gove would fling himself into it, which would be a definite sight to behold. Yvette would absolutely love to do it, too, and she’d be an awful lot better than me, but Tom Watson would be my dark horse. He is a genuinely good dancer. As for Jeremy Corbyn, I can’t imagine it’s his scene, but he’d be more comfortable up there than Theresa May.
This year, as usual, I’ll be rooting mainly for those closer to my age. I have a soft spot for Ruth Langsford, and Richard Coles might surprise us – people forget he was in the Communards.
Whatever happens over the next three months, I envy them all – it’ll be challenging, strange, intimidating and utterly brilliant. There’s only one real piece of advice I have, and they’ll hear it often enough: keep dancing. They won’t regret it.