All Balls and Glitter (32 page)

By this time, Jan knew what I had been saying, because it was plastered all over the papers. The problem was that it was all true. Normally, these things are blown up out of all proportion, but this was completely accurate.

She had managed to smother it a little bit. She responded by saying something like, ‘How can you believe that? My husband’s only little. Can you imagine him pushing that 6-foot-2 judge about? I don’t think so.’

They tried to keep us apart by putting us on separate floors, but when I walked into make-up, who should be there but Jan Ravens? We spoke and she mentioned that she was going to talk about the incident on air. She said, ‘I will have something to say about it, don’t you worry.’

The show’s itinerary scheduled Jan’s appearance after mine. Of course, Claudia had to ask her about it. Jan twisted it and turned it around as expected and had the final say, which is fine, as we are all entitled to tell our own side of the story. That was the end of it. I was told not to speak about it again and that seemed a good idea.

After Claudia’s show, we went upstairs and had a glass of champagne together to finish it. Otherwise, the row was going to go on and on. We both agreed that we needed to be professional about it and stop talking about it in the media, or it would be handbags at dawn and the incident would plague us both for a year. It’s not worth it. I was happy to go clink, clink, and forget all about it.

In November 2006, my latest theatrical show opened.
Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks
was a two-hander about a gay dance teacher who is employed to teach the finer points of ballroom to the ageing wife of a Baptist minister. It starred Claire Bloom and Billy Zane; I was the choreographer.

I had a slight altercation with Billy during rehearsals. We clashed over the basic steps: ever the maverick, he wanted to do his own thing, jive it up a bit and be less formal. In the end, we
agreed that we would cover the basic points of Latin and ballroom every morning, so that we could practise technique, before we began experimenting with fancier choreography. From then on, it all calmed down. The routines ended up looking great; Billy can actually dance really well.

The
Six Dance Lessons
producers thought that it might be an idea for Billy to appear on
Strictly Come Dancing
as a one-off guest, to drum up a bit of publicity for the West End play, but Billy declined. He said that that type of reality show was not really for him, which I could completely appreciate. Of course, as it turned out, his girlfriend Kelly Brook was on it the following year.

On opening night, I looked out into the audience and there were the other three
Strictly
judges – Bruno, Arlene and Len – so I now know what it’s like being on the receiving end of their judgement. Ooh, they are a scary lot, all sat in a row in the stalls, waiting to criticize my work! Actually, they were nice about it afterwards. Opening night went without a hitch. Sadly, the rest of the run didn’t and the production eventually closed a month early.

In December 2006, the BBC filmed
A Day in the Life of Craig Revel Horwood
for BBC2. I thought it was an excellent concept because it showed the world what I actually do for a living, and also plugged dancing, encouraging others to take up the sport. Billy Zane kindly appeared on that show, which may have helped to boost the flagging ticket sales of
Six Dance Lessons
for a short while.

A Day in the Life
took a surprisingly long time to film. It was in fact one of my busiest days in reality, which might have been useful for content, but it was a little hairy living through it. It started to bug me towards the end of the shoot, having a camera in my face 24/7. Berry, who was filming me, kept asking me to do everything at least twice, like walking through doors or putting a sausage in my mouth at the local cafe. That particular task did have at least one advantage, in that Mario from the cafe provided me
with the nicest and best quality sausages that morning, but by the end of the day, the frequent repetition had become tiresome. I was pleased to get home that night and shut the door on the world.

Come Christmas, in the spirit of the season, I wedged the door open again. I decided to invite both Lloyd and Michael over on Boxing Day, to re-establish the friendship and to show Lloyd that I was OK with him being with someone else. I wanted to get accustomed to being just friends so that they could be together, Lloyd could be happy and I could be free to look for someone else.

We all sat in my house, drinking and partying, and I talked to Michael as though nothing had happened. It was all a bit weird, but I needed to see them as a couple to reassure me that theirs was a relationship worth leaving me for. It wasn’t to torture myself, but rather to know that it was a solid partnership that might turn out for the good – instead of Lloyd throwing away everything we’d built up together on some sheep-shearer shag!

Getting over Lloyd wasn’t easy. I started to read loads of self-help books to get me through it. Very slowly, I began to deal with it.

Despite my progress, I was still in love with him. I don’t think you ever fall totally out of love with someone; you just learn how to make it smaller so you can put it into a neat little box. Then you can shelve it and it doesn’t take over your life. I hated Lloyd for not being honest, but I still loved him. That will never go away, I believe, but you can reduce the affection so that your capacity to love someone else grows larger.

I felt very lucky to have had those years with him. He had been an undeniable support. Without having someone, who at least appears to be solid, in the background, I don’t think you can make as many mad choices in life. Lloyd gave me the freedom and security to pursue all my crazy dreams and I’ll be forever grateful for that.

I’ve always been a person who likes to be in love and in a
loving relationship. After Lloyd and I split, I had to learn to be happy with myself and to make myself happy. Eventually, I achieved that, possibly for the first time ever. I think it’s important that you create your own happiness and don’t rely on other people to generate it for you.

As it turns out – to quote Linda Creed’s lyrics in Lavish’s favourite number – ‘learning to love yourself’ truly is the ‘Greatest Love of All’.

N
ew year, new job. The Christmas decorations weren’t even down when I staged
Just the Two of Us
for the BBC in January 2007. The show teamed celebrities with famous
singers in a musical variant of the
Strictly
format.

One of the non-singers was Gregg Wallace, who would later be my judge on
Celebrity Masterchef
. I had no idea I would be facing him in that capacity when I was trying to get him to dance, of course. Sadly, he was the first one out.

Actress Hannah Waterman and Marti Pellow won the series. I couldn’t wait to meet Marti when I signed up to the show because I remembered him being desperately cute in Wet Wet Wet.

He knew what he wanted straight from the beginning and had a vision for each song. It was my job to get as much emotional commitment out of Hannah as I could. Often, when actors and actresses try to sing, they forget to act, so I just needed to help the two of them work on their connection.

Having said that, they didn’t need much input from me. Once they’d established an emotional bond, about halfway through the series, they were wonderful. Marti was a trooper and an excellent teacher; he looked after Hannah really well. Not all the stars were willing to spend that much time with their celebrity because, unlike on
Strictly
, both were famous before they came into the
programme. We had to work with a lot of big egos. Some of the singers didn’t want to bother, which upset their celebrity partners, so there was tension backstage. Luckily, I’m quite good at mediating and nurturing. No sniggering at the back.

Comic Relief Does Fame Academy
returned in March 2007 and once again I was in the firing line on the panel. The insane Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, whom I adore, enlivened the competition that year. The first time I met TPT, I thought she was off her head. It was on press day, before the series kicked off, when we as a cast give hundreds of interviews in groups of five, talking to ten journalists at a time, moving from table to table. Tara was in my group and you couldn’t get a word in edgeways. She was crying during the interviews, then recovering. She was talking about her sex life, then changing the subject. She was discussing her nose job, then she wasn’t. She was chattering about her cocaine addiction and then she kept saying, ‘I’m so tired. I’m so tired.’

We’d go to the next table and the same thing would happen again – the tears, the confessions and the constant chant of ‘I’m so tired’. She was so over the top. She’s a bit scary on first meeting and I wondered what we’d let ourselves in for. I felt especially sorry for the people who had to live with her, because all the contestants sleep at the Academy and have to get up at 6.30 in the morning to do kung fu with the choreographer.

As I got to know her, however, she became more and more human. I grew to love her.

Tara gets nervous as hell and then sweats horribly, just like me. Consequently, the papers assumed she was on drugs during the show. But there was no way she could have smuggled charlie into the mansion, which has as many cameras as the
Big Brother
house. Even the toilets have got cameras in them, so we’d have seen her if she’d been chop, chop, chopping in there. It did cross everyone’s mind at one point, but she’s just naturally wired.

Then she went and won the bloody thing, which was largely down to personality and the fact she let rip emotionally
and didn’t bar us from seeing her tears. Crying does win votes, it seems. Actually, I would have voted for her every time myself because she was so endearing, particularly when she sat at the piano and sang songs. She’s a brilliant pianist and gave some mesmerizing performances. As I’ve said before in this book, you can be a non-singer and get away with a musical number, if you only act it. Tara’s singing came from her heart and soul, and that became the most important thing. The audience felt like they’d been let into a private moment. That’s why people loved her. Rather than going for the big voice of someone like Shaun Williamson, the public supported a contestant who couldn’t carry a tune particularly well, but always told a good story.

I got on well with Shaun Williamson. He did have a fabulous voice, especially when he performed the rock numbers like Meatloaf. When you compare his voice to Tara’s, it seems ridiculous that she won, but she’s hilarious to watch and she had such bravado. I loved that. I hate it when people are too reserved to throw themselves into experiences, so it was wonderful to see someone be natural and just go for it.

After the series had finished, Tara generously hosted a thank-you party for everyone, the whole cast and crew. My designer friend Christopher Woods and I went along. I also invited my mate Stu, who was quite down back then and having a terrible time. He lived in Brighton, but I thought he needed cheering up so I said to him, ‘Why don’t you come to London and TPT’s party?’ He was beside himself. He’d never been to a celeb bash before and it was gratifying to hear his excited reaction.

The soirée was held in a beautiful penthouse in Mayfair. Everyone from
Fame Academy
was there – Jon Culshaw, Shaun Williamson, Tricia Penrose. There were paparazzi everywhere, as there always are when TPT is involved. When we got inside, the cocktails were flowing and everyone was having a magnificent time.

At three in the morning, we were all rather hammered, but we weren’t quite ready to call it a night. A small group of us were saying, ‘Where shall we go now?’

Tara responded, ‘Come with me.’

So the three of us chaps – Christopher, Stu and I – TPT and Tricia Penrose walked out the door. The photographers’ flashes went mad. It was crazy. Stuart had never seen anything like it in his life. We all piled into a black cab, and the snappers were knocking on the windows and chasing us down the street, as Tara was trying to put a shopping bag over her head.

TPT gave the cabbie an address round the corner, which turned out to be her real penthouse. She’d only hired the one we were having the party in – as you do.

The place was amazing. It’s a three-storey property in the middle of Mayfair, with a huge roof terrace, a lovely, big, open-plan kitchen and a massive living room, dominated by a grand piano. She has a long staircase going up all three floors and every single step has a pair of shoes on it. She has more shoes than Imelda Marcos. She also has a dedicated room that is just for footwear.

Tara and Tricia decided that they wanted to get changed out of their ball gowns into something more comfortable. The next thing we knew, they were coming up the stairs: TPT was wearing the boots that she wore on the show for ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, with nothing else on but a bra and knickers; Tricia was in a borrowed baby doll and a pair of high fluffy mules. Stuart couldn’t believe his eyes.

They had resolved to put on a show. TPT sat at the piano and Tricia sang a song. I got up to croon as well. Then we all had a big singalong. It was harmless, fabulous fun. We finally left at around 6 a.m. It was so surreal, such a fantastic night.

I was proud to be asked to become a judge on
Dancing with the Stars
in New Zealand later that spring. They’d already done two series of their version of
Strictly
, and invited me to join them
for the third. Brendan Cole, who of course is one of the professional dancers on the UK programme, was also on the panel. That made for plenty of fireworks. Brendan and I get on fine socially, but we never seem to see eye to eye professionally, on either side of the world.

There’s a strange crossover with him being a judge in NZ, because I’m so used to critiquing him and him answering back like the loudmouth he is. Brendan winds people up so much that it’s hard not to get personal with him, although I never have. On the New Zealand show, we had some huge rows – and have done so in subsequent series too. Afterwards, we choose not to talk about it, otherwise the antagonism would just keep rumbling on.