ORE Oduba has revealed how his Strictly success revived his dream of becoming a stage star.
The TV and stage star, 39, was known predominantly as a presenter before his Glitterball win eight years ago.
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Despite being a well-known face who had hosted The One Show and The National Lottery, Ore always felt there was something missing – and that something turned out to be the “golden ticket” that Strictly glory provided.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun on behalf of SlotsCalendar, he said: “Definitely Strictly helped me realise the truth. I thought I’d died a long time ago as a kid. So I feel very lucky in this job. I’m doing something that I never thought that was even possible.”
Ore first took to the stage as an eight-year-old boy in a school production, singing in front of parents and pupils. Bitten by the performance bug, he carried on starring in amateur shows until he was 17.
But that dream of treading the boards professionally soon died after he left education, with no conversation forthcoming about how he could pursue it as a career.
He continued: “That was it, until doing Strictly. It was like getting knocked on the head and the birds are tweeting around you going, ‘oh, hold on a minute, this is what I used to do’.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never done it in this environment, but this was like my first love.
“It was being on a stage, performing and trying to make people happy in a way, but in turn make me my happiest. I think had Joanne and I not won, I don’t think I would have felt the goal to go, ‘huh, okay’.
“I feel very lucky eight years later. There’s something about being a Strictly Come Dancing winner that in this world is very attractive from a producer’s point of view.
“I knew that I had something very special that not many people had. I had a little golden ticket that I knew I was able to use, which kind of helped. Truth of the matter is, I remembered that I loved performing when I was on Strictly.”
For two years Ore hosted the Strictly arena tour, speaking in front of thousands of fans and even taking part in a few dance routines, too.
“Most people would run to the hills,” he said. “But I actually love being on this stage in front of these spotlights, in front of all these people. And that was the thing that gave me the confidence to make the leap.”
While he certainly felt no shame in being a presenter, after Strictly he became aware of his place in the TV pecking order.
He said: “The truth of the matter is, and I think this might be the first time I’m saying it, I think I spent two and a half years post-Strictly working a lot, but never being given a job.
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“I know that there’s a constantly churning conveyor belt of folks in that field. And I thought, if I don’t have somewhere that I specialize in, something that is a passion of my own, then I’m just going to go on the scrap heap, and that’s the end of a career, in many ways.”
Though Strictly might have been his ‘golden ticket’, it didn’t stop him from having to prove himself time and again once doors opened.
He has grafted in Grease, Cinderella and The Rocky Horror Show, to name but a few, before achieving lead status.
“I just had to work my ass off to get to a point where I knew I could be an asset to any company,” he said. “So that was the whole process.
“So in many ways, actually, the decision was kind of quite easy to throw myself into stage and then see what happens. And here we are, eight years later, about to take on my first lead role in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
Ore is taking over the role of Caractacus Potts, made famous by Dick Van Dyke in 1968, from stage favourite Adam Garcia.
And those who get tickets are guaranteed to see a man relishing living out his childhood ream.