Why Ore Oduba’s family couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of him dancing in his pants every night

“Anybody who knew me at the time knew I was obsessed with the programme,” confessed the 2016 Strictly Come Dancing champion, pictured with dance partner Joanne Clifton and the Glitterball.

“It was actually quite staggering when I got a call just to meet the producers because they meet a lot of people – the list of people potentially to appear on that show is as long as the world is round.

“I was just so exited at the idea that one day I might appear on the show because they had me on the radar.

“I had a lovely meeting. I told them about all of the series that I had watched – about Jill Halfpenny’s jive in series two. I did not play it cool at all.

“Fast forward a few months and they asked me to be on Strictly. I will never forget my agent called me up and there was a pause on the line. Then she started singing the Strictly theme tune. I said I don’t know what this means just tell me in words not melody and theme tunes.”

Ore wowed the judges and TV audiences of millions with his moves week after week before lifting the title, something which was to have a profound affect on his career.

“Shows like Strictly do open doors and I guess for me, with theatre in mind, it actually reinvigorated a part of my life that I had put to one side.

“I spent lots of my childhood and school years on stage performing in productions. It was always there, I loved being on a stage or a sports field, that is where I found my voice.

“I guess I have been so lucky in the various things I have done in my career but it is amazing when you get an opportunity to do something like Strictly. But then again it does not guarantee that when you finish that you are going to start performing in stockings and heels in the Rocky Horror Show five years down the track!

“But I knew how much I enjoyed being in that environment and how much I thrived being on a stage – and here we are in slightly higher heels.”

Ore keep busy with TV and other work so it was to be a few years before made he made his stage debut in Grease in 2019.

“There were a mixture of reasons why I didn’t do something sooner,” he said. “Most importantly for me I always knew I wanted to find time to acquire the skills I needed to go out and perform on stage.

“I realised straight away that musical theatre was the avenue I was going to go down but it is easy to think that as a Strictly winner you can just walk into a theatre production and then run with it. I was completely unqualified is the best way to put it.

“Performing eight shows a week to a paying audience you have to be robust, have to be able, you have to have talent, have the workrate, and the ethic and all the rest of it, and so I identified that and needed to work on it.

“I knew I needed time to work on my vocal ability, I also went to Pineapple dance studios – very cliche – but I spent some time there and just wanted to get to a standard where I knew I could be an asset to a theatre company – and that takes time. It wasn’t something I wanted to rush into that is for sure.”

After Grease and a couple of flirtations with theatre The Rocky Horror Show producers came calling.

“It was Christmas time 2020 and I thought they had got the wrong guy,” he admitted.

“I definitely didn’t see myself in the show. But then I spoke with my wife, who is a huge Rocky fan, and her family have been obsessed with it for decades and they couldn’t stop laughing at the idea of me dancing in my pants every night. But they said: ‘you have to do it’

“ I said ‘Ok if you think so.’ And then I watched the film from start to finish for the first time and it was: ‘oh, this is what I have signed myself up for, right, wow.’

“I started learning the script but everything was being postponed and opening was shifted to May, then June and we eventually opened in July 2021 – and I couldn’t wait to get started.

“It was only when I got into the rehearsal room I was like: ‘oh my god, how could I have done anything else but this show’. There is an amazingly talented group, the company, the band, the whole production is so slick and has been on stage for 49 years and they know what they are doing. But what was so wonderful for me was being in that creative space again – and when the Time Warp gets shook up on the keys for the first time you go: ‘I am not in a school disco dancing to this any more I am actually about to perform this to a paying audience’ and that is very, very special.”

Ore has been touring the UK with the show to great acclaim ever since, but what does he put the success of the iconic production down to?

“There is the iconic music and when the Time Warp starts and myself and my wonderful fiancee in the show, Haley Flaherty who plays Janet, get to stand on stage and watch the cast performing the Time Warp I look to the left and the entire audience is up on its feet, dressed like they have gone to town, and you can see the happiness and the joy – they are people who have come for a good time and to party.

“Something that has been going for nigh on 50 years you would think it would be slowing down, but I think Rocky is ramping up. The audience is getting broader, there is a new generation of Rocky fans right now and it has relevance to communities and to people maybe more than it has ever been before. When you are talking about being true to who you are, and identity, and leaving that person that society tells you to be behind and coming out and being the person you want to be, I think 2022 is what is it about.

“Back in the 1970s it was a show about a few oddities, it was a bit niche and a bit underground, but now it is something to celebrate and were are all a bit weird so let’s celebrate that, come into a theatre and go absolutely crazy.”

So does he think it will be same again when The Rocky Horror opens on Monday in Peterborough?

“I will expect it and look forward to it, but it is not contractual for any audience member who is thinking of coming to the show,” he joked. “What is lovely is that we do have many, many returners who come every time Rocky is touring, as we found already – they will come dozens of times. But they all came for a first time, once upon a time, and that is something Rocky does to you – it creates something in people that says: ‘I can’t just see it once I want to come a number of times’. It does change people in the most amazing way and I am just looking forward to people coming out to see the show and leaving themselves at the door and having a good time.”

The Rocky Horror Show is at New Theatre from February 14 - 19. Tickets at www.newtheatre-peterborough.com