Chris McCausland says he doesn't want 'sympathy vote' to win Strictly Come Dancing

Chris McCausland says he doesn't want "sympathy vote" to win Strictly Come Dancing

Comic Chris McCausland is the favourite to be crowned the Strictly Come Dancing champion but has insisted he doesn’t “want to be the sympathy vote”.

The blind star has stunned viewers and the judges thanks to his incredible routines with his professional partner Dianne Buswell. But while Chris is hotly tipped to lift the show’s famous glitter ball, he wants to be judged on his dancing, not his disability. The stand-up has a genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa which meant he lost his sight in his 20s.

Despite his lack of vision, he’s dominating the dance floor, with judge Shirley Ballas branding him incredible and fans praising him online. Liverpool born Chris is sure to win over fans again tonight as he’s set to perform an emotional Waltz to You’ll Never Walk Alone. And while he says he’s pushed himself out of his comfort zone, the 47-year-old is determined not to be “a calamity because I can't see”. Speaking exclusively to The Mirror, he says: "I mean, to be honest, every time we get through, I say to Dianne, ‘Oh, I got away with that, didn't I?’ It's certainly gone better than I thought it would, because I had no idea whether I'd be able to do it at all, which is part of my doubt of, and the fear of, doing Strictly.

“That first episode, I mean, to say I was s****ing my pants is an understatement. These last weeks have been hard in terms of energy. I’ve hit a few walls along the way and that's to be expected for a fellow that sits on stool for a living. I suppose you could say that stand up is that thing of feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

“Stand up ultimately becomes a comfort zone, doesn't it? And even though people think it's brave and all that, it just becomes a regular Tuesday. I am the kind of person that will instantly react to something in a way that is like, ‘Oh, you're joking. No way. I can't do that. What? You're having a laugh’. It takes me a while for it to settle in my head and for me to process it, you know? I said no to this a few times because I just didn't think I'd be able to do it. I thought it was one step too far."

He adds pointedly: "I don't want to be the sympathy vote. I don't mind being a bad dancer. I don't mind people laughing at me because I'm a comical dancer or a bad dancer, but I didn't want it to be a calamity because I can't see.”

He’s certainly not a calamity on the famous dance floor. Chris has already taken on the jive and the salsa, earning 30 points for both. Australian Dianne has been praised by the judges for not going easy on her dance partner when it comes to her choreography, often including lots of lifts and tricks. And that’s taking its toll on Chris’ body.

“I've lost weight,” he says. “I don't weigh myself, but I do measure myself around the belly. I think that's a better way of doing it, because otherwise you start going, ‘well, I haven't lost much weight, but muscle weighs more than fat!’. So I just measure my belly, and I've lost a good few inches, but do I feel healthier?

“No! I feel like I've fallen off a horse and been dragged three miles! I’m sure at the end of this, when I have two weeks to recover, I will probably feel the fittest I’ve felt in a while. But at the minute, it's quite a lot.”

Laughing, he adds: “I was in the studio and I had ten minutes and I just laid on the hard floor. In no other circumstance of life would a hard, cold floor, be comfortable. But such is the punishment you put your body through doing this the pressure of the floor is almost more comfortable than just existing normally!”

Taking on a show like Strictly is a massive undertaking for any celebrity brave enough to set foot on the iconic dance floor. For Chris there’s a increased level of trust because he’s got no frame of reference, he’s never seen the show so has no clue about any of the dances or the glitz that goes with it.

But he’s proved he’s game for a laugh and has placed all his trust in Dianne, 35, when it comes to their performances. He explains: “I just embrace the madness. I mean, I've made peace with looking like an idiot, so I'm just kind of like, ‘dress me in what you want, paint me what colour you want, and push me out of there’.

“I've said to her, ‘I'll get a spray tan because I'm probably too pasty. If you want me to, I will.’ But I'm filming a show on Wednesday night, so not too much. Otherwise I look like an idiot when that comes on in February!” As well as the glitz and glamour of the show, another huge part of Strictly is the judges, but just like the dances, Chris has no idea what they look like. So what does he imagine when they are critiquing him every Saturday night?

“Do you know what? I think three of them look quite distinguished and they know what they're talking about,” he laughs. “I think one of them has got a big flappy mouth that keeps on going, but I'm mentioning no names!” It’s a cheeky dig at Craig Revel-Horwood who Chris has enjoyed roasting each week with his hilarious one-liners. Earlier this month he told Claudia Winkleman during a live show, “by the sound of how things are going, I think Craig is blinder than I am!”

His quick put downs have earned him an army of fans, but he says he only pokes fun at Craig because he knows he can take it. “He's there to be the villain of the ensemble, isn't he? And so I might as well try and poke him with a stick. Last week, he was really nice about us. I had something lined up I was going to have a go at him and then he was nice and I was like, ‘I'll keep that in my pocket for later’.

"But that's part of the show, isn't it? And he takes it well, I think he's up for the banter. It's all in the spirit of him being Strictly's villain.” When it comes to his comedy, Chris admits he’s keeping Strictly bosses on their toes because he refuses to give them a heads up on any jokes he has planned. But while he’s always up for a laugh, he knows where the line is and won’t cross it.

“I'm very good at policing myself for daytime, you know, and this show is daytime, really, isn't it?” he says. “It's much harder when you do something like The Last Leg, which is live and it's 10pm. You've kind of got to be edgy and inappropriate, but not ruin your career.

“That's a harder line to walk than just being family friendly, which I'm a good judge of. But I tell you what, some things I just don't tell them I'm gonna say because I know they'll tell me not to because they will worry. So I didn't tell them I was gonna talk about Diane kicking me in the head because I knew they'd go, ‘Oh, please don't say that’.

“But I knew it would be funny!” It’s that mix of comedy moments and great footwork which has made him the bookies favourite to win the show. Even his peers think he’s the one to beat, with Toyah Wilcox joking when she got the boot that anyone who wants to avoid the dance off needs to get rid of Chris first.

But Dianne, who has made it to the final with boyfriend Joe Sugg in 2018 and EastEnder Bobby Brazier last year, is not getting carried away. She says: “Honestly, we just want to keep on doing as good a job as we can for as long as we can. Whether that is to the final, whether that’s a few more weeks, whether that's you lifting the glitter ball, whatever it is, as long as we both feel really good about what we've achieved. For me, it's about Chris walking away from this experience going, ‘I actually was so much better than I ever thought I could be’, and I already know that's what people think. We already feel like we've done so much that each thing we do now is just an added bonus.”

But with his tongue firmly in his cheek Chris jokes in his deadpan manner: “No, I think if we don't win it, we failed!

“I’m just joking with you! No, listen, we are doing so much better than I ever thought we could have done. All we can do is try and do better than we did the last week. Dianne's folks are coming over in November. If we can be here in November, because they haven't seen her dancing in ages, that'd be lovely. But I'm a football fan, so we're taking it one game at a time.”

* Strictly Come Dancing is on BBC1 and iPlayer tonight(SATURDAY) at 6.25pm.

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