What did Strictly’s Craig Revel Horwood reveal on Greatest Hits Radio?

Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood dropped in for a chat with Jackie Brambles on her Greatest Hits Radio show this evening.

He was there ahead of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing tour to talk about the show but also discussed his dance inspirations and revealed the three words that persuaded TV producers to give him the Strictly job.

Craig admitted that when he heard of the show being about celebrities learning to dance, he thought it would never work and wasn’t interested in it.

He was convinced to go for an audition, so watched tapes of people in the first series and had to give his view on them.

“I watched one of a couple walking down the stairs and they said what do you think?’ My reply was ‘Oh darling, she can’t even walk down the stairs let alone get to the dance floor – it’s a complete disaster! And whoever the boy is has got the most bowlegs I think I’ve ever seen in my life as a professional dancer,” Craig said.

When asked to sum it all up as it was too long for TV, he said: “I can do it in three words: ‘dull, dull, dull!’ And they were the very first words out of my mouth on the very first show, he remembered. “I happened to be talking about Natasha Kaplinsky and Brendan Cole who went on to win series one so what do I know,” he admitted.

Craig also explained to Jackie how a meeting with rocker Suzi Quatro led him to a career in dance.

“I left school to become a chef because I thought cooking was going to be my thing – I didn’t consider music or dance to be for me,” he said. I left school at 15 and a half to become an apprentice chef and I absolutely hated it!”

He explained that one night Suzi Quatro and a big producer were in the restaurant he was cooking in, and they came back to congratulate him on his dessert which led to the offer of a job at the TV station as a television cameraman.

Continuing, Craig said: “Throughout all this time I was learning to dance as well, not thinking I’d become professional at all. Working at the TV station I was driven to think I could dance more and become a professional so at 17,18, I auditioned for West Side Story, got the job and I’ve worked in musicals ever since!”

Sharing how his love of dance was sparked at a young age, he revealed that he got into dance when John Travolta leapt onto our screens in Saturday Night Fever in 1977.

“He made it cool to dance. It was the first time you could dance in the playground – I went to an all-boys school in Sydney when that film came out – and it was really cool to have everyone trying to learn how to disco dance. I loved it,” Craig added.