‘Why I’d never have cosmetic surgery,’ says Anton Du Beke

Before the series began, he said he was going to be kind and empathetic, knowing what it’s like on the other side of the fence. And he has stuck to that principle.

“People don’t really know – and the (other) judges don’t know because they haven’t done it – what it’s like on Wednesday and Thursday when you are dancing in the studio and it’s going marvellously and the routine has come together and the concept works,” says the 55-year-old. “Then on Saturday night when it goes terribly and it’s nothing like you’d planned, nobody knows what that disappointment is like, because you only get one go.

“When I got Ann Widdecombe in the studio (in 2010) I was absolutely delighted. This was the first time I danced with somebody who was a foot shorter than me. As funny as it was, what was I going to do with her? That was my concern. But when we had a conversation in the studio, I realised immediately that we were like-minded and we decided we were going to do whatever we wanted, regardless of what we were supposed to be trying to do.”

In January he embarks on a national tour of Showtime, a new extravaganza with fellow professional dancer Erin Boag, which pays tribute to some of the world’s greatest icons of entertainment including Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

But he doesn’t like to be away from home for long. A doting dad to four-year-old twins George and Henrietta, he doesn’t want to miss them growing up and doesn’t do long hotel stays when he’s on tour. “I love being a dad. It’s my favourite thing in the whole world. We have a great time. If I could, I’d have about 50 kids. Hannah wouldn’t like it, of course. I have no desire to get old. I wouldn’t go under the knife because I think that’s a bit like painting the downstairs living room. Once you’ve done the ceiling you’ve got to do the walls as well and once you’ve done the walls you’ve got to replace the carpet. Where would it end? I don’t think I’d go for cosmetic surgery.”

He did, however, have a hair transplant in 2017 which he said at the time transformed his life.

“It was important just because I couldn’t see anything else apart from my hair being a bit thin. Every time I looked in the mirror that was all that I could see and I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something about that.’ It was the best thing I ever did,” he says now.

The second lockdown gave him time to write his latest novel, We’ll Meet Again, another romantic yarn set in and around the luxurious Buckingham hotel in 1939, as newlywed debonair dancer Raymond de Guise is off to war and a new hotel manager takes over.

The book is another collaboration – he comes up with the stories and the characters and narrates it while someone else gets it down on the page – but with all the familiar characters from his previous novels, which begins with the outbreak of war and ends in Dunkirk. “Book two (Moonlight Over Mayfair) was nominated for historical romantic novel of the year award, which I was delighted about,” he enthuses.

While he held dance classes online during the first lockdown, he struggled with the second one, he recalls. “We all found it a bit more difficult with the second lockdown. It was much gloomier and it wasn’t a good place at all for me,” he recalls. “I was fed up. I did struggle during the early part of this year.”

Appearing on Steph’s Packed Lunch on Channel 4 with presenter Steph McGovern in Leeds helped lift his spirits.“I needed something to do professionally just to have a reason to have a shave and put a suit on and go and do something. I’m eternally grateful to Steph and everybody on the show for letting me be involved.”

We’ll Meet Again by Anton Du Beke is published by Zaffre tomorrow.