Strictly Legends Reunite for New Dance Floor Spectacular

The dance stars’ dates in Scotland are amongst nineteen dates that the Legends of the Dance Floor tour will perform across the UK throughout October.

And they truly are legends, all of them recalled with fond memory for their spells on Strictly: Pasha Kovalev, Vincent Simone, Ian Waite, Brendan Cole and James Jordan will be dancing for your delight but also sharing anecdotes in a show directed and choreographed by Scott Coldwell. And no one could be more excited than the quintet of high-class hoofers.

Back in 2022, Pasha had appeared in a UK tour of Here Come the Boys, alongside Graziano di Prima, Aljaz Skorjanec, the late Robin Windsor and Karim Zeroual. “I knew the power of having five professional male dancers performing together,” he says. So, it took very little persuasion to get him involved in this new show.

Legends of The Dance Floor tour is coming to Scotland in October

The Legends line-up have remained firm friends from their time on Strictly. “We all get on well so I know we’re going to have fun on stage – and that will communicate itself to the audience.” At 44, Pasha, who regards Latin dance as his speciality (despite his Russian heritage), is the baby of the group.

Even so, he freely admits it’s harder to maintain a peak of fitness when you reach your 40s. “In your 20s and 30s, you’re obviously more flexible. I pay much more attention now to both my exercise and eating regimes. A two-hour live show can be pretty brutal. Don’t get me wrong: I’m absolutely looking forward to it. But I know it’s going to hurt.”

Apart from picking up the prized glitterball with his celebrity partner, the late Caroline Flack, in 2014, Pasha has good reason to be grateful to Strictly. It’s where he met and fell in love with his now-wife, Countdown maths whizz, Rachel Riley. And there’s no question, he says, she’ll be bringing their two daughters, Maven, four, and two-year-old Noa to watch him dance.

But have his happy memories of the show been tarnished in any way over the last few months by the copious stories of possible abuse of celebrity contestants by their professional partners?

Strictly legends: Vincent Simone, Brendan Cole, James Jordan, Pasha Kovalev & Ian Waite

“My reaction is that, if any of it is true, it shouldn’t have happened. And it’s quite right that those accusations should be properly addressed. On the other hand, I know those guys personally and it’s hard to believe they could be guilty of what’s being said.

“If they are found to have behaved inappropriately, it will damage their reputation, yes. It won’t damage Strictly, though. The show is bigger than this episode and it will carry on. How could it not? It brings so much joy to so many people.”

Vincent Simone, 45, entered the nation’s sitting rooms via Strictly in 2006 and remained with the show for seven years. He knows well, he says, that the vast majority of the TV audience is female. “So, the idea of putting five well-known male dancers on the same stage – professionals who made the show what it is now – was always going to be a good one.”

He also acknowledges that headlining your own tour exerts an undue amount of stress. “So, appearing with four other professionals is going to ease the pressure and I’m looking forward to that. It’s going to be fun. These people are my friends,” he says.

Legends of The Dance Floor

For all that, he’s now in his mid-40s. Does it get harder to maintain tip-top form? “This may sound strange but I have so much experience now that I can bring a greater maturity to my dancing. Rather than going at 100 miles an hour, I can connect better with an audience on an emotional level precisely because I’m no longer in my 20s.”

When Vincent first got involved with Strictly, he remembers celebrities being told that they’d only be required to rehearse a couple of hours a day. “But that didn’t turn out to be the case. Every professional wants to win and that takes many hours of practice.”

So he takes the recent newspaper reports of celebs being put under undue pressure with a pinch of salt. “I’m not condoning actual abuse, of course not. But there’s no point pretending that taking part on Strictly is a walk in the park.

“It’s a big TV show. A lot of time and talent and money is invested in it. There will always be an appetite for it as there seems to be for the Legends tour, if advance ticket sales are anything to go by.”

Ian Waite danced on Strictly for seven years until 2009 and then spent the next decade appearing with Claudia Winkleman followed by Zoe Ball on the spin-off show, It Takes Two. He also got together with Vincent for a tour, The Ballroom Boys, to which they invited Brendan Cole.

“It didn’t happen with the three of us but that planted the germ so, when I was invited to be a part of the Legend tours, I was already sold on the idea. There’s so much nostalgia surrounding Strictly, I’m sure it will be a big success. But I’m 53 now and the thought of being seen in Lycra with a muffin top has been enough to make me lose weight and get fit again.”

Talking of Strictly, what has been his reaction to the recent shenanigans? “It’s very difficult to know what was going on if you weren’t actually in the room. All I can say is that all my memories of the show are of sheer joy.

“That said, I do think there’s a lot of pressure put on the pro dancers to produce amazing routines every week – and that’s when unfortunate things can sometimes happen, especially if everyone’s getting tired.

“But there’s so much good about the show that it seems a shame when these isolated incidents are put under the microscope. There are wars going on, for heaven’s sake. Should behind-the-scenes on a dance show really be on the front pages? Dance should be about positivity, as I hope the Legends tour will demonstrate.”

New Zealand-born Brendan Cole, 48, has every reason to be grateful to Strictly. He joined the show for its very first season in 2004 winning the glitterball that year with his celebrity partner, Natasha Kaplinsky, and stayed until 2017.

He’s worked with the other four Legends professionals so he was quickly on board when producer Steven Howard first put the proposition to him. “I’m looking forward to it enormously,” he says. “I’m almost anticipating a riot because of the energy we’ll all bring to the stage.”

But does his stomach do a somersault when he contemplates nineteen tour dates in almost as many days in October? “Well, there’s no doubt that a two-hour show, sometimes twice a day, is gruelling, particularly if you’re not match-fit. You only achieve your peak of fitness when you’re performing: that’s when the adrenalin kicks in.

“I’ve done 450 performances of my own show over 10 years so I do have a lot of experience to draw on. But I don’t think people are coming to see just the dancing; they’ll also want the camaraderie, the banter, the chat. I’ll be pulling a few legs.” So, he’s a bit of a tease? “Absolutely – and proud of it!”

In 2018, while rehearsing for their stage show with Ola, his wife and professional dance partner, James Jordan, 46, injured himself and ended up with a double hernia. “I honestly thought that was it in terms of touring.”

But when he and Ola were approached with the offer of the Legends tour, he found it irresistible. “I knew the others well and I liked the idea of sharing the load. But we couldn’t quite see how we could make it work with our four-year-old daughter, Ella, just starting proper school.”

The dilemma was only resolved when Steven Howard suggested that just one of them should take part in the tour. “Ola immediately said it should be me, as much as she would have loved being involved, because she was the one who wanted to settle Ella in her new school.” And from there consolidated the idea of the five legends all being male.

So, will Ola bring Ella to see daddy dance? “A hundred per cent. She’s very used to the fact that both her parents are dancers although she’s never seen us live on stage.” Given the gene pool, does her father think she may well follow them into the world of dance one day? “Unfortunately, yes, because I’d like her to be a professional golfer and then I could travel the world with her as her caddy!”

Since he accepted the invitation to dance on the Legends tour, James has been back in the gym five or six times a week. “The other four have had their own tours which has kept them pretty fit. But I’m now in good shape because I was so nervous of going back on tour.

“I don’t want to go out there and be the weak link. I want to be as good as I was on Strictly. My main emotion, though, is excitement about being back on stage with my friends in front of a live audience. It doesn’t get better than that.”

For tickets: legendsofthedancefloor.com