Star spotting is Strictly child’s play!

STRICTLY Come Dancing’s pros have come a long way since their first baby ballroom steps.

Some waltzed straight on to the hit BBC show, while others took several attempts to get there.

Saturday’s special episode focuses on the dancers – and reveals producers use a “chemistry circle”, like dance speed dating, to match celebs and pros.

Kevin Clifton, 36, now realises he had no chance of being hired after turning up for his first Strictly audition as a goth, with long black hair, eyeliner and black fingernails.

His then girlfriend, Karen Hauer, got the job immediately, but Kevin was turned down twice.

“They said, ‘We’d love to take Karen, but not that guy. We have no need for that gothic scarecrow who thinks he’s the rock star of the ballroom’,” said Kevin

Kevin, who won last year’s show with partner-turned-girlfriend Stacey Dooley, still didn’t fit the bill the next year. In desperation, he agreed to appear in the trailer as the

“invisible dancer”, a man in a skintight bodysuit who danced with the celebrities.

He was airbrushed out entirely, but was finally hired.

Kevin admits he was overdoing his salsa with Stacey in a bid to impress the TV executives and was gutted when fellow pro Alex “AJ” Pritchard, 24, started chatting to her during the coffee break.

“AJ took her away! I was like, ‘It’s not Love Island, mate’,” said Kevin.

Born into a Cuban household in Miami, Florida, Janette Manrara, 35, says she had “happy feet” that never stopped moving.

It turns out that the pro dancers are best friends all year round.

Janette, Luba Mushtuk and Katya Jones went on holiday together this summer, red-haired Aussie Dianne Buswell, 30, will be bridesmaid for Amy Dowden, 28, next year and Johannes Radebe will be best man at the wedding of 25-year-old Italian dancer Graziano Di Prima.