‘I turned down Strictly’ – 5 things we learned from Chris McCausland’s interview with Emma Barnett

When Chris got the call to do Strictly, he initially wasn’t keen – fearing it would be a “disaster”.

“Strictly has always pushed on that representation, which is fantastic,” he says.

“But representation is only good if it’s positive and not if it sends out a negative message. And so my concern, my fear, was that it could be a disaster.

“It does nobody any good, if the blind guy goes on Strictly and has a disaster… it doesn’t do me any good, it doesn’t do blind people any good, it doesn’t do disability any good.”

At first, Chris was vehement in his refusal. But Strictly “kept on asking”, and his feelings began to change.

“I said no to the year before. I said no to the Christmas special. They asked me to do the series I did, I said no. They kept on asking though.

“I knew they wanted somebody blind to do it because they kept on asking me. There’s a lot of straight white northern comedians out there so they obviously wanted somebody blind to do it.”

Chris says he came to a realisation – that he would feel deep regret if he felt blindness wasn’t “represented positively” on the show.

“I knew that I would be the best person, or one of the best people, to do this,” he says.

“I didn’t know if it was possible – that was the problem.

“But I knew that if they went and got somebody else and they came on with a sob story or their little violin and made it all sad and sympathetic – or they didn’t put the effort in to really, really push the boundaries – I knew I’d be furious with myself.”

Chris decided to say yes – and the rest is Strictly history.