'The job is to make it look easy, but it's basically chaos management': Tess Daly on the Strictly Christmas special, friendship with Claudia and why family comes first
While the nation settles down to watch Tess Daly and co strut their stuff in a spectacular Strictly Christmas special, the show’s star tells Event she’ll be in the kitchen, missing Brucie
‘The biggest lesson I learned was that if you wanted something, you had to do it for yourself and do it well. That has always stayed with me... I’m a grafter. Pure and simple. I always have been,' said Tess Daly
The day I meet Tess Daly, on a bright winter’s morning in London, should be one of unbridled celebration for Strictly Come Dancing.
It is the show that has become the BBC’s most unlikely Saturday- night phenomenon, a confection of sequined ballroom dancers swirling amidst glittering, Lycra-clad celebrities whose trials and tribulations with the foxtrot and rhumba have kept the nation on the edge of its seat.
This year Strictly, led by Daly and her co-host Claudia Winkleman, has triumphed in the ratings, whipping its Simon Cowell-led rival The X Factor with audience figures, at more than 11 million, almost double those of the ITV show.
‘You can’t be smug about it,’ says Daly. ‘All you can be is grateful that we’re doing well.’
But the triumphant gloss is somewhat taken off the day as it is announced that her friend and mentor Bruce Forsyth will not be by her side for the Christmas Day Strictly special, having undergone surgery on an abdominal aortic aneurysm.
Instead it will be Daly and Winkleman back at the helm.
‘I’ll do the school run in my jeans and barely any make-up. I talk to my girls, to the other mums. I’ll do homework with the girls after school – I spend a lot of time with my girls,' said Tess
‘It’s a really big shame,’ says Daly, revealing that she sobbed in the car when Brucie told her he was leaving the show for good a year ago.
‘But like everyone else I want him to be absolutely fit and well. Filming Strictly is physically demanding and the Christmas special is a ten-hour shoot, so it can be tough.
'It would have been so wonderful to have him back for Christmas, but I just want him to get better. We keep in touch all the time and he’s doing really well.’
When the show’s toe-tapper-in-chief finally hung up his dancing shoes, he anointed Daly and Winkleman as the first female pair to co-present a major Saturday-night entertainment show.
There were many who predicted Strictly would fall flat. They were wrong. It proved a masterstroke, but Strictly has suffered the odd misstep along the way.
I ask Daly about one of the hotter topics of this Strictly season – the accusations of rigging earlier this month from contestants including Loose Women presenter Jamelia, who lost out to Peter Andre in a vote-off in November, and professional dancer Ola Jordan.
They claim producers favour certain stars with better partnerships, more exciting training videos, better audience reaction clips – and tactical voting from the judges.
‘It’s a real friendship and I think the public can see that. We’re mates. We have kids the same age. We hang out together as families,' said Tess of her Strictly Come Dancing co-host Claudia Winkleman
Jordan’s comments were slammed by judge Craig Revel Horwood, who said: ‘Strictly is in no way fixed – there is no way I could be told what to say.’
As the story twists, hot and steamier than a tango, in the tabloid press, Daly, 46, quickly shuts down the accusation.
‘Listen,’ she says, talking about the brouhaha for the first time. ‘I have been at Strictly since Day One.
'I can categorically say that the integrity of everyone who works on that show, from the producers to the judges, is absolutely without question. There is no fix. This is not an issue, it is just an absolute nonsense.’
She looks genuinely aggrieved. Daly will not hear anything against the judges, who – as well as being friends – she respects for their talents.
‘Every judge is a professional dancer – they know what they are talking about. They care about what they do. We have great judges on Strictly.’
So that’s that, then. Strictly is clean. In fact it’s cleaner than a Bruce Forsyth gag at the Royal Variety Performance, according to Revel Horwood and Daly – and tapes released two weeks ago by the BBC go further in backing this up.
Right now, Daly and Winkleman are preoccupied with the task at hand: on Christmas Day it falls on their shoulders to deliver the day’s top ratings for the BBC, when the Christmas special lights up our TV screens in a blizzard of glitterballs and festive glamour (more of which later).
Few would bet against them nailing it. But as she sits between breaks for the Event photographer, clutching a hot cup of tea and wrapped up in an enormous, colourful fluffy coat, Daly says she takes nothing for granted, and offers a rare and tantalising behind-the-scenes glimpse of just how much work goes into each live Strictly show.
‘The job is to make it look easy, but it’s basically chaos management. On Strictly, I need to know everything that’s going on so I can completely interact with the judges, the dancers and the guests,' said Tess
‘The job is to make it look easy,’ she reveals, ‘but it’s basically chaos management.
'On Strictly, I need to know everything that’s going on so I can completely interact with the judges, the dancers and the guests.
'On top of that, I need to know about the set builds, the production, the guests in the audience.’
It might just be dancing in posh frocks, but for Daly, Strictly is serious business, not just a job but an all-consuming obsession.
‘During the run of the show I absolutely live and breathe it,’ she says.
She can tell you about the lighting, she can name every runner, explain exactly what those judges mean when they talk about midlines, top lines, stutter steps and closed dance holds.
On a typical day of recording, Daly will arrive at 10am, have breakfast on the run, go through scripts and outfits with Winkleman and, by midday, when the judges arrive, be ready for the run-through with the dancers and celebrities.
‘I watch every bit of each training video, I catch up with the dancers and the guests to find out how everyone is doing, I watch the rehearsals, see the costumes – I know everything that is going on,’ she says.
‘Claudia is exactly the same. We sit on the phone or in the studio and talk about what’s happening; who is doing what.
'The viewers have to trust that we know what we are talking about. And we do.’
After rehearsals, Daly and Winkleman go into hair and make-up, final tweaks are made to scripts and sandwiches are consumed at haste in dressing rooms (Winkleman is known to bring in home-baked brownies for all and sundry, although the constraints of long clingy dresses often make food choices somewhat challenging).
‘Live television can be unforgiving, when you haven’t quite managed to get into your Kylie Minogue outfit in time for a sketch, or you fluff your lines. It’s where you really learn,' said Tess
Both presenters also need to be in prime physical shape to make it through a show in one piece.
‘I have to run at speed in heels,’ says Daly, who always wears the same pair of crystal Gina shoes, ‘and do it in a long dress, from front of stage to backstage, so I can watch each VT.
'I have to know the dance steps totally so I can time when to run back the 40 metres to do the talk when it’s over, without ever sounding out of breath or looking sweaty.
‘When we were in Blackpool, the set build was running overtime in rehearsals, so I needed to be ready to run eight more times in between dances to cover any time they needed by talking to the judges. I was in a running position all night.
'You have to be like a swan, all the frantic paddling going on under the water and smooth gliding on top. By the end of each series I have calf muscles like you wouldn’t believe.’
She pauses, then adds: ‘I mean, I know I’m not saving lives here, but live television is no walk in the park.’
This year’s Christmas special might not be filmed live but it still requires a colossal display of stamina from both the hosts and the competitors.
Pre-recorded over an epic ten- to 12-hour day, the one-off show sees the ghosts of Strictly past go head-to-head in a marathon contest for the 2015 festive title.
The contestants will rock around the Christmas tree to themes including Jack Frost and Alice In Wonderland and there are several sequences filmed in the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle.
Abbey Clancy, Harry Judd and Tom Chambers will compete alongside Alison Hammond and Lisa Snowdon, and for the first time ever in the show’s history they will be joined by a non-celebrity, the 33-year-old former Royal Marine medic Lance Corporal Cassidy Little, who lost his leg serving in Afghanistan.
Little so impressed the judges when he won a charity version of the show – The People’s Strictly – that he was asked to appear in the Christmas special.
'It would have been so wonderful to have him back for Christmas, but I just want him to get better. We keep in touch all the time and he’s doing really well,' said Tess of her former co-host, Bruce Forsyth
‘I think he is incredible,’ says Daly. ‘He blew me away when he did The People’s Strictly with that Paso – I think it is the most viewed clip we have ever had online in Strictly history.
'He is performing a jive in the Christmas special and I have really high hopes for him because he can really move.’
On Saturday nights and for that hour-and-a-quarter on Christmas Day, Daly is ours. But away from the show, she ducks the limelight, preferring to hang out in the large house in the Home Counties she shares with her TV presenter husband, Bolton-born Vernon Kay, and their two children, Phoebe, 11, and six-year-old Amber.
Red carpets, parties and premieres are shunned unless work dictates it or the cause is one she supports, such as the Great Ormond Street Hospital charity (both she and Kay are GOSH patrons); there is no nanny or Daly ‘brand’.
Here, day-to-day life is a world away from the sequins and glitter of Strictly.
On Christmas Day, when we are all watching her perform her superhuman swan routine on TV, she will be in her kitchen getting together a teatime buffet of cold meats, salads and cake for her family along with her mum and Kay’s parents.
‘Everyone else will be watching but I’m going to be in the kitchen dancing along to Christmas music and making the tea.’
Daly says she is not interested in bigger money deals and a 24/7 television profile. She turns down hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of work every year.
Her commitments are simple. She does Strictly and will also front a new parenting series as a follow-up to her on-demand AOL show, Being Mum.
Her home is run as a tight ship, with good behaviour charts, pocket-money duties (hoovering and cleaning) and set bedtimes.
‘Vernon and I are northerners at heart who are so bloody grateful to have what we have, and we want our kids to grow up being both appreciative and respectful.
‘Family comes first. I’m painfully aware that the time you have with your kids can go in a nano-second and I want to be present for as much of it as possible. Nothing else is worth what being away from my kids would cost me.
‘Vernon and I manage everything between ourselves. I do the school run every day and the pick-up 90 per cent of the time because I’m working on Strictly.
'Vernon does his radio show [he fronts the Radio X weekday morning show] during the week, so he has the girls when I’m doing the show on Saturday night.
‘I’ll do the school run in my jeans and barely any make-up. I talk to my girls, to the other mums.
'I’ll do homework with the girls after school – I spend a lot of time with my girls because I think that’s the important stuff in life. It’s what counts.’
‘Vernon (Kay) and I are northerners at heart who are so bloody grateful to have what we have, and we want our kids to grow up being both appreciative and respectful,' said Tess
Her life today is a world away from her own childhood in a working-class area of the Peak District where her father, Vivian, and mother, Sylvia, both worked in factories all their lives.
Growing up in the Seventies, the family lived uneasily under constant threat of redundancy. Her parents worked punishing shifts to keep the money coming in for their two daughters (Daly’s younger sister Karen is a teacher in New Zealand).
Her father began working at 15 and continued until he was 65, mixing dyes in factories and receiving a gold watch and damaged lungs for his troubles.
He lived long enough to walk his daughter down the aisle for her wedding to Kay in 2003, but died 18 days after the wedding from emphysema. When she talks about him it is with a mixture of pride and profound loss.
Spotted at the age of 16 outside a McDonald’s in Manchester, Daly made the decision to become a model despite the pleas of her parents and teachers at the school where she gained nine GCSEs.
By the age of 17 she was living in Japan, working as a model, appearing in glossy magazines and in videos for Duran Duran and The Beloved.
She spent five years in Paris and then moved to Spain and New York. It was there, at the age of 28, that Daly began plotting a career in TV. Ever the pragmatist, her first plan was to buy her own VCR recorder, in order to film interviews she set up for herself to send off to TV companies.
She describes her days in modelling as her ‘education’.
‘The biggest lesson I learned was that if you wanted something, you had to do it for yourself and do it well.
'That has always stayed with me. It’s never bothered me what people think of me, whether they think I’m some fluffy blonde or whatever, because I’ve always known deep down exactly who I am and what I am.
'I’m a grafter. Pure and simple. I always have been. You need to be.’
Vivian Daly remains a profound influence on his daughter. He was himself a gifted ballroom dancer and part of the reason Daly was so thrilled to be offered the Strictly job in 2004, alongside her friend and mentor Forsyth.
But there is another, rather unexpected, man she credits with helping her move from modelling to television presenting – the author of The Naked Civil Servant, Quentin Crisp, who became an unlikely friend, until his death in 1999.
‘Family comes first... Vernon and I manage everything between ourselves. I do the school run every day and the pick-up 90 per cent of the time because I’m working on Strictly,' said Tess
‘I’d made a decision I wanted to be a presenter,’ she recalls, ‘but I knew it was up to me to come up with something that could show what I could do.
'I had very few contacts but I knew that Quentin Crisp was in the phone book. I did my research, I knew he said he liked to “sing for his supper”, so I rang him and invited him to lunch.’
Before her New York date with the flamboyant author, Daly spent several hours hunting down the perfect silk scarf to give Crisp.
‘He was so delighted, he took off the scarf he was wearing and threaded it through the scarf ring he wore on his neck.
'We sat down for lunch. My friend filmed it. It was very amateur, with the microphone showing, but we just got on like a house on fire.
'We stayed in touch because I loved him. I used the interview in a tape I then sent to The Big Breakfast and that was my first break [in 2000] on television.’
She soon discovered that presenting live television is like performing a high-wire act without a safety net.
‘Most people, from Ant and Dec to Cat Deeley, Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, did live kids’ television,’ says Daly, who moved to SMTV and shows such as Make Me A Supermodel after her Big Breakfast stint.
‘Live television can be unforgiving, when you haven’t quite managed to get into your Kylie Minogue outfit in time for a sketch, or you fluff your lines. It’s where you really learn.’
And in recent months, the departure of Dermot O’Leary from The X Factor and the odd cringe-worthy faux pas from his replacements – Olly Murs and Caroline Flack – have left viewers in no doubt as to the level of skill required to do the job.
She keeps in touch with Flack (last year’s winner of Strictly) but rarely sees Cowell, Rita Ora or Cheryl Fernandez-Versini unless it’s a TV awards show.
‘I do hear quite a lot from Louis [Walsh], though,’ she says. ‘He keeps texting me to say how much he’s loving Strictly,’ Daly grins.
We talk about her friendship with Winkleman, who she refers to simply as Claude. The whip-smart Winkleman is the woman she turns to for advice on everything from family dramas to the perfect Christmas gift.
‘It’s a real friendship and I think the public can see that. We’re mates. We have kids the same age. We hang out together as families.
'I know her mum [journalist Eve Pollard] really well. We talk about everything: life, death, shoes, whatever.
‘But the real thing that bonds us is we both put our kids and our families first.
'We could work every day of the year, we could have a lot more money and a lot more material things, but both of us have the same view on being mothers – you don’t get this time back and it’s more important than anything else.
'If you lose someone important in your life it makes you realise how thankful you should be to be with people you love and that you have to really enjoy that time.’
The final of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ is on Dec 19 at 6.35pm and the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Christmas special is on Christmas Day at 6.15pm on BBC1
TESS DALY'S PERFECT CHRISTMAS DAY
Christmas begins very early in our house.The tree goes up the first weekend in December. All the baubles have a sentimental meaning, from ‘first Christmas together’ to ‘trip to Disneyland’.
Vernon is in charge of the lights and the girls and I decorate the tree.
On Christmas Day we are up at dawn opening presents. The girls have one big present each and then lots of little presents.
I make the breakfast – always pancakes – then Vernon does the turkey and the gravy and I do the vegetables. Crackers are a must. Everyone has to wear their hats and we have jokes at the table.
In the afternoon it’s board games – Monopoly, Cluedo, Uno – the Queen’s Christmas Message and an afternoon walk.
In the evenings we’ll watch a family movie, and I’ll make a buffet while everyone else watches Strictly.
The things I insist on are a box of After Eights and a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. The taste of those chocolates to me is the taste of Christmas. And there has to be at least one glass of champagne.
