BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Chris McCausland 'didn't even notice' condition that led to blindness

Chris had to make a career switch at a young age due to his failing eyesight.

Chris McCausland, one of the stars of this year's Strictly Come Dancing, admitted he initially “didn’t even really notice” the condition that gradually led to his blindness. Comedian and actor Chris, 47, lost his sight at the age of 22 due to a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa.

However, the dad-of-one admitted it happened so “slowly” since he was born, that he didn’t pay it much attention. In an interview with The i last year, he explained how other family members had the same condition.

“My grandmother had it, and my mum,” he said. “Basically, I’d been going blind very slowly since I was born, and so didn’t even really notice it happening – like the frog in the pan of boiling water.”

As a young man, Chris moved to London to study software engineering at university but this was hindered by his eyesight. “My eyesight was starting to get very bad at uni, and the technology back then wasn’t what it is now, so I had to get off that particular career path,” he said.

As a fan of comics such as Jack Dee, Lee Evans and Eddie Izzard, he decided to try comedy, “because I had nothing to lose”. He continued: “But I did want to challenge perceptions. I was never going to go on stage and do 20 minutes of blind jokes.

“I think that, back when I started, I was quite uncomfortable with who I was, embarrassed even. I wanted to be cool, you know? And I wasn’t.”

According to the National Eye Institute (NEI), retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina - the light-sensitive layer of tissue in the back of the eye. RP makes cells in the retina break down slowly over time, causing vision loss.

There’s currently no cure for RP but vision aids and rehabilitation programs can help people with RP make the most of their vision. More recently Chris, who is partnered with professional dancer Dianne Buswell in this series of Strictly, spoke out about the lack of genetic testing for his condition.

On Gyles Brandreth’s Rosebud podcast Chris said that he and his wife Patricia aren't able to know whether their daughter, Sophie, will develop retinitis pigmentosa. "If the genome was a map of the United Kingdom, they think my problem is maybe somewhere in south west London but they haven't narrowed it down to a specific gene yet," Chris said.

"But it meant that when my daughter was born we wanted to know whether she would have it and of course, there’s just no test there's nothing. The analogue tests they do now are a lot more technological, they can check the electrical signals of the optic nerve as you're looking at things and see whether it's as strong as it should be and all these kinds of things, but nothing definitive. It's all just wait and see."

Symptoms of retinitis pigmentosa

The most common early symptom of RP is loss of night vision, the NEI says. This usually starts in childhood.

Parents may notice that children with RP have trouble moving around in the dark or adjusting to dim light. RP also causes loss of side (peripheral) vision — so you have trouble seeing things out of the corners of your eyes. Over time, your field of vision narrows until you only have some central vision (also called tunnel vision).

Some people with RP lose their vision more quickly than others. Eventually, most people with RP lose their side vision and their central vision.

Other symptoms of RP include:

• Sensitivity to bright light
• Loss of colour vision.