From SOAP GEEK TO DANCEPHWOAR GOD!

He found fame on Emmerdale as a gawky child star, but after a stunning transformation, Strictly stand-in Kelvin Fletcher is the (very) hot favourite to lift the glitterball

From the moment he sprung on to the Strictly dancefloor in September to perform a sizzling, hipswinging samba, Kelvin Fletcher has been the dancer to watch on Saturday nights.

His success is all the more unexpected because Kelvin, 35, was drafted in at the last moment to replace injured made In Chelsea star Jamie Laing and has had no previous dance training. Indeed, he spent 20 years mostly in overalls as the depressed, unlucky Andy Sugden in the TV soap Emmerdale. Yet his dazzling moves and buff physique have prompted comparisons with late dancer and actor Patrick Swayze. At odds of 8/11, Kelvin is now the favourite to win Strictly Come Dancing, and has reportedly also been offered £250,000 to star in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in the West End next year. Kelvin lives in oldham with his wife, Liz, and children, marnie, three, and milo, ten months. He is teamed up in the show with popular professional dancer oti mabuse. The adulation has come as a pleasant surprise to him. remarking that Strictly has helped him move on from Emmerdale, Kelvin says: ‘It’s refreshing for me. [The public] have only seen me a certain way, and maybe me being on Strictly has startled a few people. But that’s because they’ve seen me play Andy Sugden for so long.’

Certainly, when Kelvin made his debut on Emmerdale back in 1996, no one could have predicted that the buck-toothed boy would become a heartthrob.

Later, though, his changing physique saw him become the hunk of the Dales. By the time he left the show in 2016, he seemed to be topless on screen more often than not — earning him the nickname ‘Phantom Flasher’ among his castmates.

Judging by the sensation he’s causing on Strictly, a topless dance can surely only be a matter of time. So, how did Kelvin go from geek to god?