‘ola has very little sympathy for me!’

Despite former Strictly pro James Jordan, who’s skating with alexandra Schauman, topping the leader board in the first week, he says he finds it strange that people think his dance skills will be transferrable. ‘I find it weird people are expecting me to be good on the ice. I have advantages with arms and timings, but learning how to ice skate has zero to do with dancing. It’d be like saying all dancers should be good skiers.’

James’ wife, fellow ex-strictly professional ola Jordan, hasn’t been as supportive as he had hoped, either.

‘ola is not very sympathetic,’ says James. ‘I come home and go, “oh my God, it’s so hard,” and she’s like, “Yeah, whatever.” She came to watch me rehearse and she was standing on the sidelines going, “Your posture’s bad, your arms don’t look good.” I was like, “I tell you what, go and get some skates and we’ll see how good your posture is!”’

Believe it or not, the scariest part of the show for James, 40, is the lifts, despite being a dancer. ‘Lifting is scary, on ice it’s a whole different ball game,’ he says. ‘You’ve got these toe picks at the front, and you know if your weight goes too far forward you hit the toe pick and it’s so dangerous.’

But one silver lining is that James has lost the weight he gained since he left Strictly in 2013. ‘I’ve lost 2st,’ he admits. ‘when I stopped I went up to 14st 9lb. I’m down to 13st now.’ ✱ Dancing on Ice is on Sundays, ITV, at 6pm