McFly star Tom Fletcher claims stage school training will be useless on Strictly

MCFLY singer Tom Fletcher is desperate to play down his dance background after being made one of the favourites to lift the Glitterball.

The rocker, 36, is a former pupil at Sylvia Young Theatre School and took the lead role in Oliver! on the West End aged just 10, but he insists that doesn’t give him any advantage as it was so long ago.

Indeed, Tom says the only way he can be tempted onto a dancefloor at a wedding is if he’s had a few drinks.

Tom says: “I can dad dance. I went to theatre school and I’m a musician, I love music and we did some dancing at theatre school but this was 25 years ago and it was like tap, and it definitely wasn’t ballroom or Latin.

“It won’t come in useful at all, unfortunately.

“Other than that, I kind of avoid all dancing. I am the last person on the dance floor at a wedding, I am the person that awkwardly hangs around the edge and says no unless they’ve had a few glasses of wine.

“The confidence to move my body is going to be the biggest thing to overcome.”

Tom has waited patiently for his turn on a TV talent show having watched his band-mates, plus wife Giovanni who won I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! last year, excel at them over the past decade.

McFly drummer Harry Judd won Strictly in 2011, the same year bassist Dougie Poynter was crowned King of the Jungle and frontman Danny Jones finished fifth on ITV series Popstar to Operastar, before becoming a coach on The Voice Kids.

So why has he waited so long and built up all that pressure?

Tom explains: “Secretly, somewhere deep down I’ve wanted to do it since my band mate Harry did it 10 years ago.

“I watched him every week in the studio so I feel like I’ve had some sort of secret desire to do it but then life gets in the way but this year it felt right and it felt like it was time.”

However, Tom hasn’t just got his eye on the Glitterball and making it through to the show’s landmark moments such as Musicals and Halloween week.

He hopes, by the end of his Strictly journey, he’ll be able to fulfil another ambition.

Tom adds: “I am not flexible. Whenever I leave Strictly I want to be able to touch my toes.”