{"id":611652,"date":"2026-09-25T19:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T19:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/611652\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T19:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T19:18:10","slug":"graeme-hall-on-past-dance-competitions-ahead-of-strictly-come-dancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/611652\/","title":{"rendered":"Graeme Hall on past dance competitions ahead of Strictly Come Dancing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Graeme Hall has been dubbed something of a dark horse by Strictly Come Dancing<\/a> viewers as details emerged about his past dance experience.<\/p>\n

Graeme, best known as The Dogfather, first began dancing at a charity event in 2012 and said it was a “dream come true” to be on Strictly after a stroke made him think he’d never be able to dance again, having given it up in 2019.<\/p>\n

The TV presenter has been paired with Lauren Oakley, and they are both eager to get out onto the dancefloor and take on a challenge he’s never experienced before.<\/p>\n

“Well, there’s competitions and there’s competitions, right?” Graeme told Radio Times<\/a>. “I’d got involved in a charity event in 2012, and then I carried on dancing as a hobby. And I did some beginner and novice competitions, in village halls and all that round the country.”<\/p>\n

\"Graeme<\/p>\n

Graeme Hall and Lauren Oakley.\u00a0BBC\/Ray Burmiston\/BBC Creative<\/p>\n

Graeme noted that the competitions were “great fun, but nothing like this [Strictly]”.<\/p>\n

He added: “Oh my goodness. I mean, in that launch show we were already doing things that I never did in the five years when I was dancing. Lifts, drops… But we did it and it was really good.”<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Graeme is keen to learn a dance he has never done before, including a Paso Doble and a Viennese Waltz.<\/p>\n

Lauren Oakley told Radio Times that she reckons Graeme will be “great at a Paso Doble” as he has “a really good dance face”.<\/p>\n

As for what she’s looking forward to teach, the pro added: “I think the Viennese Waltz because I know how much Graeme really wants to do it, and I also really like choreographing a Viennese Waltz. I think it’s very music dependent.”<\/p>\n

Strictly Come Dancing continues on Saturday 26 September at 6:15pm on BBC One and iPlayer.<\/p>\n

Add Strictly Come Dancing to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app<\/a> \u2013 download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.<\/p>\n

Check out more of our Entertainment<\/a> coverage or visit our TV Guide<\/a> and Streaming Guide<\/a> to find out what’s on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graeme Hall has been dubbed something of a dark horse by Strictly Come Dancing viewers as details emerged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-611652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}