Craig Revel Horwood: ‘My life was better before Strictly Come Dancing’

It’s a blazing hot day in Liverpool and backstage at Empire Theatre, Craig Revel Horwood faces two hours of padding and girdling for the first of today’s performances as Miss Hannigan in Annie.

“At least there’s a window,” he says. “It looks out to a brick wall, but still.”

The delivery is everything.

Famed for his acerbic wit on Strictly Come Dancing, Horwood can certainly turn a phrase. A playful Guardian quiz published in 2018 asked the reader to identify: “Who said it: Strictly’s Craig Revel Horwood ... or Mark Twain?”

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Post-padding, Horwood’s electrifying and acidic performance in Nikolai Foster’s rousing production recalls the famous expression: “Don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything [Fred Astaire] did ... backwards and in high heels.”

His high heels are formidable enough. The soaring 27-degree weather and weighty latex bosoms are equally taken in stride. It’s been an emotional week, too. The late Paul O’Grady was scheduled to perform as Miss Hannigan during O’Grady’s hometown run.

“Monday night was quite difficult,” says Horwood. “Everyone was so looking forward to seeing him. I made a speech saying that we would honour him with every show. That’s my objective. To make the audience love the show and to make them think of him doing it.”

The British-Australian shows almost as much affection for his onstage alter ego, the perennially sozzled, man-starved, orphan-hating Hannigan, a character that has previously been played by Carol Burnett, Sheila Hancock and Cameron Diaz.

“She’s a woman who is looking for love,” is Horwood’s gleeful assessment. “She’s got 12 kids aged under 11. That’s quite a tough job and especially in the Depression in New York during the 1930s. She pushes them into factory work. But she is reliant on government handouts, after all.”

It changed my life in the fact that I can’t walk out on the street any more without being recognised. Is that a good thing?

At a certain moment during our meeting, Horwood says: “That’s the first time I’ve ever said that in an interview.”

Those words have weight coming from someone who has written three remarkably frank autobiographies – Tales from the Dancefloor, In Strictest Confidence, and All Balls and Glitter – each a chronicle of eating disorders, his father’s alcoholism and an affair with an unnamed celebrity that he has repeatedly likened to prostitution.

[ Angela Scanlon joins Strictly Come Dancing 2023 line-up ]

“My life was better before Strictly Come Dancing if I’m being absolutely honest,” says Horwood. “Because everyone thinks that made me, but actually, it’s an accessory. It’s because of my success that I’m on it. It’s because I was an award-winning director and choreographer. It didn’t make me; I made it. And it’s a Saturday job. It’s not nine to five. It’s not Monday to Friday. It was a huge risk when it started. No one knew it was going to be as big as it was. I thought we’d get one season out of it and I’d end up looking like an absolute idiot. But people fell in love with it. It changed my life in the fact that I can’t walk out on the street any more without being recognised. Is that a good thing? Losing your privacy. Not being able to go to the supermarket without someone shoving a phone in your face for a picture and signing a receipt. That makes life difficult. The upside of being a celebrity is that you can stand on your soapbox for charity. I’ve been able to raise awareness and money for the Royal Osteoporosis Society. That’s the only good to come out of it.”

He’s not done.

“And people think you’re rich,” he says. “Because rich and famous go together. I get paid like anyone else. I have to manage my money like anyone else. I’m not a Hollywood superstar getting 17 million. I’m a judge on the TV programme. I’m a choreographer and director. Nobody goes into dance to get rich. You dance because you love it.”

Horwood is quite correct when he says he made Strictly Come Dancing. For 20 years he has served as the resident baddie on the hit BBC show. Until a brush with Covid, he was the only judge to have appeared in every episode.

In 2010, the Guinness Book of World Records named Strictly Come Dancing the world’s most successful reality TV format. It has been licensed by BBC Worldwide to more than 60 broadcasters serving more than 100 countries, including Abu Dhabi TV, which began broadcasting Dancing with Stars Bel Araby to the Arab world in 2020. The US variant, Dancing with the Stars, proved so popular that Barack Obama moved his address to the nation detailing the 2011 Libyan bombing to avoid clashing with the show. The late Diego Maradona danced in the 2009 Italian version; Pamela Anderson has been a contestant on the Argentinian, US, French and Israeli series.

I was hated for the first two years because no one knew my sense of humour

In every iteration, regardless of country or personnel, there’s a Craig Revel Horwood in the corner, ready to dismiss Albania’s answer to Patsy Palmer as a “two-bit actress in a second-rate soap”, or to tell the Chilean Ellie Taylor that her rumba is just “walking around”.

Horwood has, accordingly, been assaulted by at least one octogenarian TV fan and by the husband of an eliminated contestant.

“I was hated for the first two years because no one knew my sense of humour,” he says. “Oh, that nasty one on the end! He can go! People just didn’t get that I was treating people as professionals and talking to them as a choreographer would. I judge for that one minute and 30 seconds. You need to fix this. I can’t have someone in my show that’s slacking all. I can’t have someone that’s no good. These are notes, like in theatre. There is no emotional attachment when I tell you to do something a different way. And I’m not like that in real life. I don’t act that way at a barbecue. People did seem to get offended for a few years. But things changed. They started liking it. They became judges themselves. And that’s been replicated in 60 countries worldwide. You need a technical head; you need a clown like Bruno [Tonioli], you need someone who is going to love, nurture and embrace. And you need me, a Mr Nasty.”

Horwood was born in Ballarat in Australia in 1965, the second of five children, in a family that lived in fear of drunken episodes and their naval lieutenant father, Phil.

He was not the first performer in the family. His grandfather was an amateur magician and clown who rode around on a penny-farthing; his mum, Beverley, was a former tap dancer. Horwood had trained as an acrobat for two years before he joined his sister in a jazz-ballet class. Horwood landed his first professional dance job in a production of West Side Story in Melbourne in 1983 and subsequently relocated to London to pursue a career on the West End. As a choreographer, he has been twice shortlisted for Laurence Olivier Awards; as a director, he has presided over productions of Miss Saigon, Sunset Boulevard and the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester.

And he continues to dance.

“I don’t expect to be doing it for very much longer,” he says. “I’ve already had a double hip replacement. And there comes a time when you have to say, keep your body going, keep it lubricated, feed it, nourish it. But don’t expect that you can dance like a 21-year-old. I still want to jump into splits. I used to love jumping and sliding all the way into the wing. For me, that was easy. Now, it’s virtually impossible. And I think, Oh, look at me! I don’t let it get me down. You have to accept your limitations and work with them. You would never say to a disabled person: you can’t dance because you’re in a wheelchair. Because you can. You just have to work with the body you have. I still love dancing and that’s what’s great about choreography. You can live through others.”

If anything, over the last five years, freedom of expression within dance has become hampered

Last week, three former backing dancers accused pop icon Lizzo of sexual harassment. The star denies the allegations, which have ignited some debate around dancers and choreography. This discourse will not be novel for Craig Revel Horwood.

“Times have changed,” he says. “I’ve had unbelievably stressed choreographers screaming at me. I had a ballet mistress who would thrash the back of your leg if you were using your thigh instead of your hamstring. With the Gen Zs of this world, the hand goes up: we don’t know that this move is appropriate, can we think of another one? Is everyone in agreement? They’ll refuse to do certain moves. If anything, over the last five years, freedom of expression within dance has become hampered.”

Ever the straight-shooter, Horwood has, as a writer, detailed his “coming out” at 18, struggles with anorexia and a violent outburst that earned his late father the nickname “Shotgun Phil” in local Australian newspapers.

As a British tabloid once abridged in a headline: “The boozy father, the secret wife, the sugar daddy: The outrageous story of Craig Revel Horwood.” Does he ever regret sharing so much of himself, I wonder?

“Oh no,” he laughs. “I would have written more if I had the pages. I did write more that didn’t get through the edit because of legal. Even when you are writing your own book, you are still censored. People find that hard to believe but the only way around that is to publish and distribute yourself. Who has the money for that? There are commercial considerations. And I couldn’t name names. I had to write: Mr X did that. Of course, when I wrote the first book, I had no idea of the legalities until the publisher said: you can’t write that; you cannot name this person. I suppose it does make it a little bit more intriguing. But the real people know who they are. Because I told them.”

Annie is at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre from August 23rd until September 3rd