Karen Hauer and Gorka Márquez: Strictly Come Dancing stars bring Speakeasy tour to Hull, York, Sheffield and Bradford

In winter 2024, the Venezuelan-American was paired with former Arsenal footballer and pundit Paul Merson, lasting until the fifth week, but Hauer has been on the BBC show since its 10th season in 2012.

You’d have thought that once the series is over, all the dancers go home for a rest over Christmas. Not in showbusiness. Hauer, for one, was the Carabosse baddie in the Sleeping Beauty pantomime at Middleton Arena in Manchester, then went on to the Strictly tour, which finished earlier this month, and at the end of February embarks on her own show with fellow professional Gorka Márquez.

After the first tour Firedance, they return with Speakeasy, is coming to Yorkshire and emulates the atmosphere of underground clubs from the 1920s through to the 1970s, going back to “where it all began”.

Hauer says: "We wanted to go into the underworld of dance, the secret clubs that everyone talked about but not a lot of people were allowed to go in there. This is where all these amazing dances grew, were born, and all these different styles that are very popular nowadays were born. We wanted to take it back,” she says. And obviously me being from New York and (that city) having a major influence from all the different speakeasy bars that are there, the piano bars there on 42nd street, we wanted a little bit of that. The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”

Márquez, 34, describes Karen as “like my sister” but says the new show is “passionate, and dark with intensity”.

“When you think of Strictly, you think of all the sparkles, the glitz, the glamour, and it’s not going to be like that.

“When someone comes to a speakeasy, there’s going to be something more underground, undercover. The idea comes from numbers like Cabaret and Chicago, and both of us really enjoy the mood and style during those dances – so why not bring this into a show?”

After starting in May 2004, Strictly Come Dancing has become an annual institution in the UK - a prime example of primetime television.

But after 22 seasons, what is it that audiences continue to love?

"I think people put themselves in these celebrities’ places,” says Hauer, 42. “They put themselves in the spot where they go: ‘If they can do it, I can do it’, or vice versa.

"I've been on the show now, what, 13 years? And it's never been about the competition. The competition is just the fun part, you know. It's like, that's what they add on top of it.

"But for me, it has always been about the person that you're teaching and how they evolve.

"And they don't fall in love with dancing - they fall in love with the person that they've become, or that they're turning into,” she says.

"They're discovering a new person that they never thought could do something like that.

"Everybody can dance. You put music on, you feel it, there's songs that you have that you'll tap your toe to or you'll swing your head around, it doesn't mean that you have to do twirls and turns. But when you physically make someone do something that they think they couldn't do before – and the physicality, the emotion, the connection to your partner, the connection to the music, the connection to the floor – and then daring themselves to go out there and do something so out of their comfort zone is quite incredible.

"It's incredible to see how they come in. Last year I danced with Paul Merson. When he first came in, he was like, ‘I can't dance’, and I was saying, ‘Don't you worry about it, baby, I got you’. And it was the connection, the fact that we became such good friends. because of this. You have to trust someone. And I think that's what people love. People love to see someone go, ‘Actually, that wasn’t bad!’”

Spending weeks alongside new people learning choreography means the pairs get to know each other well. She’s taught the likes of Jeremy Vine and Simon Rimmer, but Hauer’s time with Dave Myers – half of the Hairy Bikers cooking duo, who died from cancer aged 66 on February 28 last year – is obviously poignant.

“He was an incredible human,” says Hauer. “I remember him bouncing into the studio. It still makes me smile – whenever I think about him, I just smile – his little ponytail banging up and down, learning the cha-cha-cha, or how he used to call it ‘beans on toast’,” she adds, referring to his food and dance analogies.

"He was the first celebrity that made me realise how much fun it is to learn, and how much fun it is for someone that has never danced before to learn and how much fun it could be for me to teach someone who's never danced how to dance, and the fun that we could have with it, and to let go of any inhibitions and let go of any perfection or anything like that. But his perfect was his own way of doing it – his own dancing was perfect for him, and I just loved it. I loved it so much and I had the best time.”

She remembers a dress rehearsal in which the pair were doing a pasodoble to Meatloaf’s I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) – “of course, as you do” – and off camera, when there was smoke shrouding the stairs, he missed a step, fell down and she couldn’t find him. “All of a sudden, he just appeared out of nowhere from the cloud. It was hilarious. But he just had that thing that just made you smile and even though we were doing a serious dance, I couldn't keep a straight face. He literally just made everything joyful.”

Speakeasy comes to Hull City Hall on Wednesday, March 5; York Barbican on Thursday, March 6; Sheffield City Hall on Sunday, March 9; and Bradford St George’s Hall on Thursday, March 13. Tickets: www.speakeasylive.co.uk