All Balls and Glitter (26 page)

On another holiday, later in our relationship, we drove all around Italy, which was stunning. It was one of those long hot summers that seemed to stretch before us, full of promise and temptation. We had more money at this point, so we stayed in really posh hotels with fabulous views and amenities.

I just loved driving around with Lloyd. He was so much fun to be with. We had loads in common and we could always see the funny side of bad situations – which came in handy at Christmas time, when there always seemed to be some disaster.

We would often spend the season with Lloyd’s mum, Christine. Once, the three of us, along with our very close friend Amber Louise Ives-O’Brian, celebrated it at Christine’s home in Brighton. The festivities began as they were meant to go on. We were running late for the train to Brighton, and already a little stressed from that, when upon our arrival at Victoria station, Tigger, Amber’s dog, threw up all over the platform. We soon discovered, rifling through our bags filled with presents and wrapping paper and ribbons and smart Christmassy clothes, that we had nothing to clean it up with. Luckily, the guard came along and kindly did our dirty work, which was above and beyond the call of duty.

When we arrived at Christine’s – Tigger still not well – Amber and I went straight into the kitchen to start preparing the dinner. Christine had done the shopping the previous day; a last-minute rampage around the supermarkets for the cut-price bargains, as was the family’s way. Christine isn’t much of a cook and will readily admit that. That year, she’d decided not to have a turkey, but had instead opted for a goose. It was a nice idea, but when we came to carve it at the table, it was all bone. There was barely
any meat on the bird to plate up. We were howling with laughter over it.

There was many a Christmas to have a giggle at. It was my turn to host next. I planned a big fat turkey with all the trimmings, so as not to repeat the skinny goose travesty. It looked delicious. Everyone was waiting to tuck in after the Queen’s speech; I went to carve the turkey breast … and it was as dry as a nun’s gusset. I was devastated.

I didn’t mention it to anyone else, as I hoped that once the gravy was lavishly sloshed about the plate, no one would notice. I hate really runny gravy, so I’d made a really thick, viscous concoction. Amber’s husband Mark went to pour it as I watched nervously from the head of the table. It stayed like a brick in the gravy boat, having set like concrete as I was carving the beast.

We all tried desperately to say nothing – but it was unavoidable. I could see with my own eyes that everyone was finding it hard to swallow. The food was literally sticking to the roofs of people’s mouths.

Mark was the first to speak. He commented politely, ‘I like my gravy a bit thinner than this, the spoon seems to be standing bolt upright in it.’

Then I asked if everyone’s turkey was all right, as I was finding mine a bit dry.

After that, they all let rip on the dry insults. Christine was the only one who actually liked it. All fun and games.

That was what I loved about Christmas: the fact that we all got together and, by pure chance, created stories to dine out on for the year ahead. I hold those memories fondly. Amber and Mark had a baby a few years after that – and named him after me! That poor child: Monty Revel Ives-O’Brian is my godson, and I’m very proud of him. He’s recently become a big brother to Digby Rolo Ives-O’Brian, who is also as cute as a button.

Family was important to Lloyd and me. I got on with my in-laws really well and became part of their gang. It was
wonderful for me to have surrogate relatives in the UK to lean on, and to spend good and bad times with. Lloyd’s sister Angela in particular soon became a close friend.

My family back in Oz emulated that welcoming feeling; they all loved Lloyd to bits. We would go on family holidays together, which was an enormous amount of fun. Angela and Christine used to come too. I remember one very hot summer afternoon, on one of our many trips to Australia, when we planned to go to a wildlife reserve in Ballarat. Christine came out of the house for the outing dressed in a tiny mini skirt, a tank top and the most outrageous sparkly sandals, which were purple with sky-high heels. I simply had to say something about how wearing those particular shoes to feed the kangaroos was somewhat inappropriate. We were going into the bush for goodness’ sake – not to an opening-night red-carpet do! It was hilarious. We chuckled about that forever.

Australia was always mine and Lloyd’s sanctuary. We often told each other that we would be together forever, no matter what happened. If the worst came to the worst with our careers, we agreed that we would go and make shell necklaces on the beach in Queensland.

But, on the contrary, we were going from strength to strength. In 2004, I returned to the Lido de Paris. This time, I was in charge and choreographing a show,
Bonheur
, which – I’m very proud to say – is still running today.

It was fantastic to go back, because I’d come full circle. As I went through the steps with the dancers, it was weird to think that my career in Europe had started on that very stage.

The experience was a challenge. I wasn’t used to working with such tall dancers, for a start, who are generally few and far between in musical theatre. Plus, it was a huge spectacle. There were seventy dancers, only twelve of whom were boys, and the girls were all topless. That affects the choreography, as it means you can’t include shimmies or ‘titty-juggles’ and you have to be careful about how far the dancers lean over and which side movements
you employ. It was very different to my usual brief, and hard work. Yet it was also brilliant fun: wall-to-wall choreography and pure dance.

In the same year, I choreographed
Beautiful and Damned
, a musical based on the lives of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. We started the run out of London with previews at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. John Barrowman played Fitzgerald for the Guildford season only. Also in the cast was Sarah Lark, who later found fame on
I’d Do Anything
, the BBC’s search for an actress to play Nancy in
Oliver!
in the West End. She was amazing in
Beautiful and Damned
, and very helpful and creative.

One night, when I was going around giving out notes, I knocked on John Barrowman’s dressing-room door and he yelled, ‘Come in!’

When I opened the door, he was standing on the dressing-room table, bent over double, with his trousers round his ankles. He made me give his notes to his bare arse. It was hideous, but I adored him for it.

John is hilarious. He used to muck around on stage like you would not believe. As soon as he turned upstage, away from the audience, he would be pulling faces and trying to crack everyone up. He was always getting his willy out in rehearsals. You’d be in the middle of a dance number and you’d turn around to see John was flashing again. It was either that or his bottom. He is terrible. He’s a naughty, naughty boy – but you can’t help but love him.

He’s great to work with if you are in the chorus, because he makes everyone laugh all the time. But if you’re choreographing or directing, and you want to keep some decorum in the rehearsal room, he’s a terror. He’s professional, but he’ll have everyone in stitches the minute you turn your back.

The only time I find John problematic is when he gets upset over something, for example, when he doesn’t think a certain scene is working and feels that nobody is taking his points on board. When an actor doesn’t trust a director, most people with
talent will flare up. I can fully understand his frustration, but it takes quite a lot of effort to calm him down. Usually, however, he is right, so people should listen to him.

John is enormously gifted. I think once he started pushing for more control, his career really took off. Like any actor, he needs some guidance and help, and to be nurtured by his director. At Guildford, that was Phil Willmott.

Although I got on with Phil personally, we didn’t see eye to eye on a professional level, so I became exasperated. There were lots of scenes in the production that I believed weren’t gelling. Phil kept cutting the choreography, but to my mind, it wasn’t just the steps that required an overhaul. The entire show needed to be sliced and diced and cut down to a decent length – it was three hours long and nobody wants to sit through theatre of that duration any more. In the end, I walked out. I just couldn’t bear to work in a situation where the lines of communication weren’t open.

After that, Phil and I had a chat and I said I would stay until opening night, but I wasn’t interested in taking it to the West End. I would have to find something else to fill my time …

F
ate had a huge hand in my biggest break: becoming a judge on
Strictly Come Dancing.
In fact, the BBC had originally wanted just three judges and had already booked Len Goodman, Bruno Tonioli and Arlene Phillips. Then, at the last minute, they decided to add another one – and it happened to be me!

The call came during a hugely pressurized morning. I was working on
Beautiful and Damned
, and I was right in the middle of this major run-through with all the producers, so I couldn’t have been more stressed out.

My agent, Gavin Barker, handed me his phone, as my mobile was switched off for the rehearsal, and asked, ‘Can you go out and speak to the BBC, just for ten minutes?’

I agreed to a telephone interview and they asked me a series of questions like, ‘What would you say if someone did this on the dance floor?’ I knew nothing about the proposed show, so I was thinking, ‘This is all rather odd.’ At the end of the chat, they asked me if I would come in for a screen test. We found a morning in my schedule and I went to the BBC, but I had just an hour to spare. A week later, they called and said I had the job. It was only a few days before we went live on air on 15 May 2004.

Meeting the other judges for the first time was nerve-racking. I was introduced to them at rehearsal, in the green room, just before a production meeting. I knew Arlene already, of course, albeit from a distance. We had worked alongside one another on the
2002 Commonwealth Games, but the very first time I encountered her was when she’d choreographed me in the 1992 Royal Variety Performance, back when I was a dancer. It was easy to introduce myself and tell her that I’d worked for her a hundred years ago. She needed a bit of reminding about that, though, so perhaps it wasn’t quite so memorable for her!

Arlene is from my world, but the more commercial end of it. We are both theatrical choreographers, but I tend to take on more arty-farty work, like Kurt Weill and Verdi operas, whereas Arlene executes sure-fire bets such as
Grease
and
Saturday Night Fever
brilliantly. Like me, she is used to being highly critical of herself. We are both very au fait with accepting feedback from reviewers. I think if you give out criticism, you’d better learn to take it. It’s the nature of our jobs always to look for the missing element, the piece of the puzzle that will turn an average performance into a spectacular one. It’s our bread and butter. After all, if we put anything substandard out there too often, we wouldn’t work. Do three bad shows in a row and any choreographer is screwed; no one will employ you. You really are only as good as your last production.

When Arlene and I see a performance, we know what’s wrong with it immediately, because that’s what our eyes are trained to look for.

In contrast to my awareness of Arlene’s work, I didn’t know Bruno as a choreographer at all. I read a blurb about him before I went to the studio to meet him for the first time, so I knew he worked in film, TV and pop videos. That was obviously why our paths had never crossed.

My first impressions of him made me feel anxious, because he was completely over the top. I was worried that I didn’t have that sort of over-exuberant character. I’m a lot drier, a lot calmer. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to match him – or even why I had been employed, because I was the last on the job. We judges never had any idea what our ‘characters’ were supposed
to be. Though we must all have been cast for a reason, we weren’t told why. We were recruited on the strength of our reactions to video footage, which is what they’d showed us in the screen test. On reflection, I guess that, as a director, I would have cast the series in exactly the same way.

Finally, I met Len, whom I thought was
really
scary, because he knows everything about ballroom; he’s like a walking technical manual. I stood there with the three of them thinking, ‘This is going to be awful. I’m going to be pulled up all the time.’

Of course, when we got going it was fine, because Len would talk about technique and we would comment on the performance. He wasn’t called Head Judge on the first series. That title came later, when they introduced the dance-off, because someone had to have the casting vote and Len was the obvious choice.

As the first show approached, all four of us judges were nervous wrecks. I’d never done live TV before in this capacity, and the thought of having to critique these celebrities in front of millions of viewers was terrifying. The only celebrities I’d ever had dealings with were theatrical ones, like Dame Judi Dench and Dame Julie Andrews, and all in the comfort of a closed rehearsal room or theatre. Not in public.

None of us had a clue what we were doing in the beginning. We didn’t know how it would pan out at all and, in fact, we all thought it would be an absolute disaster. I gave it three weeks, tops. We didn’t think anyone was interested in ballroom dancing any more. Yet after that first programme, we came off and we were buzzing. We looked at each other and said, ‘My God, that really worked.’

In TV, it’s very difficult to predict how the masses will react to something. You have a studio audience, but they’re warmed up and given direction on when to clap and laugh. You never know how the programme will affect the people sitting at home, until it goes on air. But we got a really good feeling about it all on show one and it took off, from that very first day. It was unbelievable.