Soon-to-be-married Brendan Cole may have thrown off the bad boy image but his lust for dancing is as strong as ever, writes KATHERINE MACALISTER.

Brendan Cole laughs when I ask if he minds being known as “the bad boy of ballroom” or “Strictly’s ladies man”, as he’s called in the tabloids.

For a start he’s walking down the aisle in June, so his days of womanising are now well and truly over, and he says it’s better than being known as a “fairy dancer”. “Being a ballroom dancer growing up in New Zealand, meant I was keen to show my masculinity in my dancing, and prove myself, because there are a lot of camp and gay dancers out there, and I did get teased.

“But I played other sports too – rugby, football, softball, volleyball. I always had a competitive edge. I just like dancing best.

“And if you tell me I can’t do something, I just make sure I can – it makes me more determined,” he says. Brendan’s determination has paid off, because not only is he one of the longest-serving and most popular ballroom dancers on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, but he’s also touring with his own show UK Live and Unjudged, coming to Oxford tonight.

“As a performer it’s what you always dream of – having your own show,” Brendan says. “And this is my show. We didn’t have a director or choreographer; it’s me, which is why it took a year to get on the road and why I’m so proud of it.

“You get to see the real me, not just 40 seconds on a TV show, you get to see the real person.”

So what do we get on TV then, a cardboard cut-out? “Well after a TV show people might come up and say, ‘Oh I liked that dance’, but on stage you get to see people’s reactions. It’s magical.”

And yet Strictly Come Dancing nearly didn’t happen at all. “It was a bit of a gamble for everyone involved to begin with,” Brendan admits, “because I couldn’t imagine ballroom dancing making particularly good TV.

“The best thing was changing how ballroom dancing was perceived, because the establishment turned their noses up at Strictly to start with, until it proved such a great hit that suddenly everyone wanted to get involved,” he smiles.

Not only did the gamble pay off, but it made Brendan a huge celebrity, but with the fame came the headlines.

“Maybe I was thrown in the deep end when I joined Strictly, because we all know I’ve had my fair share of ‘situations’ and you learn from them. But we all make mistakes, you just don’t want your mother to be reading about them.

“I just had to learn the hard way in front of 10-12 million people every week,” he says.

“And the publicity is hard to get away from, but I’ve always been true to myself and I wear my heart on my sleeve. I don’t have the British mentality of saying one thing and doing another.

“But I’m getting married in a few months’ time so there is hopefully nothing left to say about me.”

So is Brendan finally being tamed? He laughs: “People do think I’m being tamed. But I’m a 33-year-old who has met the woman of his dreams and just wants to get on with it.

“I’ve done the young, work, fun, single thing, and now I’m ready to get married. But I will always be me. Nothing changes there,” he promises.

Brendan Cole’s Live and Unjudged comes to Oxford tonight. Box office: 0844 8471585.