Like any new dad Kevin Clifton wants to be with his daughter all the time – but admits he’s looking forward to sleeping when he’s on his own on tour.
The 40-year-old former Strictly Come Dancing champ will be touring the UK for the next three months in the stage version of Strictly Ballroom: The Musical.
But it means spending time apart from partner Stacey Dooley, 36, and their three-month-old daughter Minnie.
If he’s 90 minutes from their London home Kevin plans to commute and sleep in his own bed but also knows he won’t see them for a week during the show’s other stints around the UK.
But he revealed: “We’re making it work. It’s lovely to have them with me on tour because I miss them when I’m away and obviously on the other side I get eight hours sleep! Stacey says to me, ‘I’m happy for you, do the show, go back to the hotel, get some sleep in, just don’t talk to me about it!’
“But for the next few weeks they are coming with me on tour.”
Kevin, from Grimsby, joined Strictly in 2013 and immediately made his mark coming second four times in a row.
And although he only came seventh with Susan Calman in 2017, they became the viewers’ favourites. Kevin finally won the following year with Stacey and the pair announced in 2019 they were an item. Daughter Minnie arrived in January this year.
And while Stacey has been a stay-at-home mum for Minnie, Kevin will change roles after his stint on Strictly Ballroom finishes in Mid-July.
He said: “I’m going to take a break for the rest of the year until around Christmas time. I don’t want to miss out on seeing Minnie all the time.
“I want to be dad and Stacey is going back to work too. She’s taken a back seat and put a lot of her work on hold to take care of Minnie while I’m on tour.”
He’s hoping to be with his family when the show stops at Edinburgh Playhouse next month – as he has a strong bond with Scotland.
He even has a “I love Glasgow” tattoo on his foot.
Kevin said: “I love Scotland. We all talk about how when we go to places like Glasgow, the audiences are so brilliant – I love the energy up there.
“I also have a tattoo on my foot that says ‘I love Glasgow’, I got matching tattoos with Susan Calman who I danced with on Strictly.
“It was a bet and we said if we get as far as Blackpool we would get tattoos – she would get ‘I love Grimsby’ and I’d get ‘I love Glasgow’. We made it to Blackpool so I’ve now got ‘I love Glasgow’ tattooed on my right foot.”
While Stacey and Minnie may be back in London by the time Strictly Ballroom reaches Glasgow in June, he’s hopeful to see his old pal Susan.
Kevin said: “Hopefully she will come to the show too and it will be good to catch up.”
Before he joined Strictly, Kevin had already dipped his toe into musical theatre with Dirty Dancing: The Musical. He also played Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages. After seven years on Strictly he announced he was leaving in 2020 to do Strictly Ballroom which was then postponed because of the Covid pandemic.
Last year as well as his first year doing Strictly Ballroom, when he partnered with former EastEnders star Maisie Smith, he also starred as the Artilleryman in Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The war of the Worlds.
With six musicals under his belt it wasn’t too big a surprise when he hinted last month he was ready to hang up his dancing shoes.
But Kevin claims he was joking about being 40 and having to do eight shows a week with Strictly Ballroom.
He said: “It’s not like I have a conscious thought of, ‘I’m going to hang up my dancing shoes soon, I’m not going to dance anymore’. It would take an amazing project for me to do it.
“There’s other things I’m interested in too, like doing musicals and I want to get more into acting and do a straight play and maybe some TV.
“My career is moving in other directions now but it doesn’t mean I’m hanging up my dancing shoes for good.”
Strictly Ballroom is a physical show and to make sure he’s fit for a big tour he has a personal trainer who looks after his diet and oversees his training.
But Kevin admitted: “It’s gone out the window a little bit the last three months since Minnie was born. Just because of lack of sleep and everything like that.
“The biggest thing now that I’m 40, it’s recovery time. When I was in my early 20s, I could go out and do a really physical show like Burn the Floor, two hours of flat out dancing, batter my body then we’d all go out partying for the night, come back in at 5am, hungover in the morning but then go straight back out and do a double show day and it’d be fine and do it all over again.
“Whereas now there’s no way I could do any of that. Now I have to really consciously make sure I’m drinking enough water, trying to get as close to eight hours sleep as I can.”
Kevin plays Scott Hastings in Strictly Ballroom: The Musical, the role played by Paul Mercurio in the 1992 Baz Luhrmann-directed movie about a dancer who risks his career with a new routine and a new partner.
For his second stint in the stage version, which is directed and
choreographed by Strictly’s Craig Revel Horwood, Kevin’s co-star will be actress Faye Brookes who appears as Fran, played by Tara Morice in the film.
Kevin is full of praise for Faye: “It felt like being back on Strictly, teaching the choreography and she picked it up so quickly and she’s got to a very good level. I’m really impressed.”
And while Craig has a fearsome reputation as a judge on Strictly he is known to be a sweetheart off camera –which took Kevin by surprise when Craig began directing him.
He laughed: “I thought it was all going to be having a laugh and him being really nice but when he’s in professional mode, you do your scenes and songs in front of him and then he says ‘that was rubbish – do it again’ but he’s the nicest guy.”
● Strictly Ballroom runs at Edinburgh Playhouse (May 8-13), Aberdeen Performing Arts (May 15-20) and Glasgow Theatre Royal (June 5-10). Tickets: strictly
ballroomtour.co.uk
