Lewis Cope, the hot favourite to win this year’s Strictly Come Dancing , has a real-life storyline better than any work of fiction. Growing up in working-class Hartlepool with 13 siblings, most of whom were into boxing, Cope instead chose to flex his jazz hands and enter the world of showbiz.

To make such an origin story even more compelling, as the grandson of a miner, he became a real-life Billy Elliot, making his performing debut in the West End production at the tender age of 11.

All of which makes Cope a prime target for the usual backlash about how people with dance experience shouldn’t dare show their faces on Strictly .

“First of all, if you look at the contestants over the years, I don’t think that’s ever been a rule,” he responds now. “But, also, I’ve done no training

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