The one lesson I’ve learned from life

acTOr Joe McFadden, 43, is best known for his roles on Heartbeat and Holby city. in 2017, he won strictly come Dancing. The scot is single and lives in london.

DO SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU

YOu can take the easy route in life, or you can do what I’ve tended to do (partly by accident!), which is choose the scary fork in the road and see where it takes you.

Strictly, for example, was terrifying. Why would any amateur put themselves in a position like that, dancing in front of nine million people every Saturday?

I’ve never known fear like it. But that fear was the best possible reason to do it. If you’re scared, it means you’ve put yourself in a new place away from everything that’s comfortable and it’s how you find new doors opening up.

I started acting when I was 12, and got cast in the detective show Taggart as a boy who discovers his father’s grisly murder by decapitation. I was recommended for it by my drama teacher at school in Glasgow. Three years later, I got a part in the STV soap opera Take The High Road, and thought, well, acting seems to work, so I’ll carry on.

But I’ve always been good at burning bridges. After four years on Holby City I had itchy feet and was glad when my character, Raffaello Di Lucca, got shot and killed. It’s good to go out with a bang and it means I can never return.

Right now, I’m doing the most frightening thing I’ve ever done in my life — playing the lead in the stage version of the drag queen epic, Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. It’s a character about as far away from me as a person as it could be.

On the one hand I’m used to the flamboyance of Priscilla — it doesn’t get more showy than sparkly rhinestones on Strictly. But on the other, it’s a live show. You’re really thinking on your feet, which in my case will be in very high stilettos.

Jason Donovan, who’s producing the show and has himself played the lead role, has already told me my back will be in bits by the end of the tour.

Yet I doubt I’d be doing this had I not done Strictly and proved that it’s possible to feel the fear and do it anyway. I’ve always liked that as a mantra.

Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert tours the UK & ireland from september 5 (priscillauktour.com).