Flying start to dancer Strictly Come Dancing star Joanne Clifton's pantomime career with performance in Sheffield

“I haven’t done it before but I have worked with lots of people who have and they say it is a really fun thing to do,” she said. Among those people is former Blue singer Duncan James, her co-star in The Rocky Horror Show, whose tour ended this month. “I am too old to be Cinderella,” said the 36-year-old, “ so I am playing the Good Fairy which means I will be doing some flying. “Growing up in Grimsby I went to the pantos, even an Easter pantomime. I loved it so much.” She comes from a family steeped in ballroom dancing. “My parents were world number ones and then my brother, of course. I always like to say I won Strictly before Kevin.” That win was in 2016 with Ore Oduba, having won the Christmas Special the previous year with Harry Judd. Kevin won in 2018 with Stacey Dooley after competing in the show since 2013. As a teenager, Joanne left home in Lincolnshire to go to Bologna to train with Team Diablo, the biggest dance school in Europe. “I was in Italy for 14 years from age 16 to 30. I had left school and really wanted to do something exciting,” she explains. “I was in Blackpool and saw this guy and liked his style of dancing and asked where he had learned it. I contacted them and asked If there were any free places.” It led to a career in competitive ballroom dancing and she and partner Paolo Bosco became champions of the World Dancesport Games in Taiwan in 2013 and won the World Professional Ballroom Showdance Championships in Merano, Italy, later that year. “After winning the world championships I was offered Strictly,” she recounts. “I had the choice of staying in Bologna and teaching but I had always preferred performing – and Kevin was in it.” At the same time, though, she had wider aspirations. “I always had ambitions in musical theatre and so in between the five months of the year on Strictly I was training in singing and acting and different things. The first thing I did was a fringe show in a room above a pub playing a prostitute.” That was in a Face the Music at Ye Olde Rose and Crown Theatre in North London where her performance as Street Walker earned an Offie nomination. In 2016, she appeared in Norma Jean The Musical, playing the title character, Marilyn Monroe, then nabbed the title role in the UK tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie and then toured in Flashdance the Musical. She said: “Winning Strictly probably helped build my profile. I didn’t go to theatre school, all my training has been one-to-one. So in January I am going to New York to study, one month in musical theatre and one month in film acting. It should be a great experience. “I had to audition to get in. I like auditions and putting yourself under pressure . I am used to it after competing in dance competitions.” She will not be turning her back on dancing, however, as next spring she will embark on a two-month tour with brother Kevin in their show, Burn the Floor. Cinderella, also starring Phil Gallagher (CBeebies’ Mister Maker), Sheffield favourite Damian Williams and Matt Daines as the Ugly Sisters and Evelyn Hoskins as Cinders runs at the Sheffield Lyceum from Friday, December 6, to January 5. •Sheffield Theatres has already announced that its 2020 production will be Sleeping Beauty, with Damian Williams returning for his 13th year.