The Strictly Come Dancing 2024 line-up will be one for the history books, as BBC bosses have recruited the show's first-ever blind contestant, comedian Chris McCausland.
'If anybody out there is thinking - How the hell is he going to do that? - then rest assured that I am thinking exactly the same thing,' Chris says about the opportunity. ' I don't dance, I haven't danced, I can't dance, I can't see the dancing I will have to do. What can possibly go wrong? Okay, don't answer that…!'
Chris - a regular face on comedy panel shows such as 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Would I Lie to You? - was the first celebrity to be announced for the show's 22nd series, telling This Morning presenters Craig Doyle and Josie Gibson that the news was the 'worst kept secret there has ever been in British television'.
'I think it's been out there, it's been exhausting keeping a secret everyone seems to know,' he laughed. Chris, 47, also confessed that he feels 'massively apprehensive' about taking to the dance floor. 'I don't know what I'm getting myself into, I've never watched it, obviously. It's just some music. I don't dance, I have never danced. I grew up with headbanging and mosh pits,' he said.
Speaking from the This Morning sofa with the second named contestant, JLS hitmaker JB Gill, Chris said, 'I think I must be the first person to ever do the show without seeing a minute of it, for obvious reasons,' he said, adding that he likes to put himself out of his comfort zone.
Of how he's going to 'tackle the process', Chris admitted he has no idea. 'I don't know anything about dancing. It's going to be a learning curve,' he said with a smile.
Last summer, the Liverpool-born, Surbiton-based comic gave a wide-ranging interview where he opened up about his vision impairment. Chris went completely blind aged 22, owing to a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa - 'a group of rare eye diseases that affect the retina (the light-sensitive layer of tissue in the back of the eye)'. People are born with the genetic disease - which makes cells in the retina break down slowly over time, causing vision loss - and there is unfortunately no cure.
Chris said, 'My grandmother had it, and my mum. Basically, I’d been going blind very slowly since I was born, and so didn’t even really notice it happening.'
Discussing his Channel 4 documentary, Wonders of the World I Can't See, Chris acknowledged that, unlike many other blind people who travel, he struggles to allow his other senses to compensate entirely for his lack of sight.
He explained, 'They say that when you lose your sight, your hearing gets better. It doesn’t. But you do pay more attention to it. So when you’re sat at a beach resort, and you’re hot, and you can’t see what’s around you, then you just end up concentrating on how hot you actually are. I suffer more for it.'
Globally, RP affects about 1 in 3,000 to 1 in 4,000 people. Last year, on Channel 4 game show Scared of the Dark - where the premise was surviving eight days in total darkness - formerLove Island star Chloe Burrows asked Chris about losing his sight.
'Yes it was painful,' he told her. 'I haven't been able to see for 20 years. When it started happening it was scary and embarrassing. I got myself into bad situations because I didn't want to ask for help. I will never be on a level playing field with everyone else.'
But Chris has a positive outlook, telling the i, 'I'm much more accepting of who I am these days – I’ve stopped having tantrums every time I spill drinks or bang my head on the door frame – and if someone said they could insert a chip into my retina that would give me back 10 per cent of my sight I’d just think, what’s the point? But a miracle to cure my blindness completely? Yeah, I’d consider that.'
In addition to his panel show appearances, Chris is also at the helm of an ITV Saturday morning chat show, The Chris McCausland Show, and also co-written and stars in Bad Tidings - a family comedy movie that will premiere on Sky this Christmas.
Millie Payne is a News and Entertainment Writer for Grazia. She has specialised in showbiz interviews, features, articles and roundups for over three years and loves combining her love for writing, talking and all things popular culture.