Chris McCausland Interview

He once thought Strictly could end his career – instead, it changed his life. Now Liverpool comic Chris McCausland has taken on another challenge: writing his autobiography. In Keep Laughing, he looks back with the same honesty and humour that made audiences fall in love with him on the dancefloor

Words | Lawrence Saunders

Writing a book is a huge undertaking, especially when it’s about your own life. How did you approach your autobiography, and what was the process like for you?

What I’ve learned, especially from doing Strictly, is there is nothing like the imminent threat of public humiliation hanging over your head to make you pull your finger out and to make those things that you should be focused on, the things that you actually quite want to focus on! When you’ve got four days to learn a dance, or you could humiliate yourself on national television, you put the f ***ing hours in and you get it done. And when Penguin put a book on sale that you haven’t started writing yet… It went on sale on Amazon on 6 January and I hadn’t even opened Word.

The book is going to be out there forever so you want to do a good job – you don’t want people to say: ‘Well, that was a sh*t book’. So that fear of it being sh*t was all I could think about. In answer to how did I write it? A few things happened. With Strictly, I shed a lot of the perfectionism that had crippled me, you know. Not that everything I’ve done is perfect, but I will stop myself from doing things if I don’t think they’ll be good enough. And what I learned on Strictly was although nothing we did was perfect, it couldn’t have been more successful for what it was and the connection it made with people was what made it successful. You can criticise the form and the hands and the arms and the whatever, but if it connects with people in the way that it did, then that makes it a huge success.

I realised that, yeah, this book’s going to be far from perfect in loads of ways but if I can connect with people and let people in a bit, then it can be a success in those areas. I just wrote. I wrote without a plan. I knew that if I tried to plan it, I’d get nowhere so I just wrote a list of topics and started writing on them. I’d do a minimum of 1,000 words a day and then, when I had about 30,000 words written, I then started thinking : ‘How do these fit together?’ [laughs].

Writing a memoir is, by its very nature, a deeply personal process – was there anything you were hesitant to share?

I tried doing this a couple of years ago, but I binned it. My heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t really know who the audience was, and I think I was trying too hard to play the comic – to put the funny front on. I grew up in Liverpool in the ’80s, and my way of dealing with things has always been a bit of a ‘pull your pants up, dig a hole, bury it in there and get on with it’ attitude.

Not to put too much emphasis on it, but once you’ve cried in front of eight million people, you start to realise the value of sharing your vulnerability. I’d never really appreciated that before. But it allowed me to be more open and to write with a lot more honesty – to talk about the things I’d struggled with instead of just putting on that front of, ‘if you try hard enough, you’ll be able to do more than you think’.

The book, of course, goes into detail about your gradual sight loss and the impact it’s had on your life. You don’t sugar-coat the challenges, but what really came through for me was that at no point did you let it stop you from doing what you wanted – or let it drag you down.

But the only way you get there, I think, is by having that attitude of ‘pull your f ***ing pants up and get on with it’. And as much as I can now say, ‘I learned the value of vulnerability and sharing your emotions’ – which I really did on Strictly, and through the way it connected with the public and the messages I got from people – you also don’t get anywhere by dwelling on things too much.

You’ve got to find a balance, I think. Being able to dust your hands off and say, ‘well, that’s just f ***ing life’, is necessary, otherwise you’ll get nowhere.

In the book you describe your early years growing up in Liverpool, and those memories feel especially vivid and powerful. Why do you think those experiences have stayed with you so clearly?

I had a good childhood. Liverpool was a great place to be a kid. You had the security and safety of a good home, but also the freedom to just get out on the streets and explore. A lot of those memories stick – the people, the characters. I probably had far more interactions with adults than my daughter does now, because her life is much more structured and facilitated for her. Back then we were in and out of people’s houses all the time – ‘Do you want your car washing?’ ‘Yeah, come in’ – and there I’d be, carrying a bucket through a stranger’s house [laughs]. You just knew everyone in the neighbourhood, and people always talked to you.

It was a happy place to grow up. Of course, as an adult you see that Liverpool in the ’80s was tough in many ways – we had our tragedy, and it wasn’t an easy time to earn a living or raise a family. But as a kid, it felt carefree, vibrant, colourful.

Going away to boarding school when you had such a fun, free childhood must have been tough, then?

I was homesick. It wasn’t just my family I missed, but also playing in the streets, hanging out at my mates’ houses, and all the things we used to do. I was lucky, though – as a kid with a disability, I had these two lives. A lot of children with disabilities don’t get that; they don’t have the chance to experience that ‘normal’ life out on the streets with other kids. The school itself wasn’t bad. I enjoyed it because there was no stress and they treated you well. It wasn’t a horrible place to be – I just missed where I came from.

You describe trying stand-up initially as a dare to yourself, never intending it to become a career. But after that first gig, you wanted to do it again. A lot of comedians talk about ‘catching the comedy bug’ early on – what was that experience like for you, and what made you want to keep going after that first performance?

There’s a real exhilaration in doing a gig and getting a laugh. Of course, not every gig gives you that – some are awful, leaving you with shame or humiliation. And if that happens on your first go, you’re probably not going to catch the bug; you’ll likely just think, ‘this isn’t for me’.

My first gig, though, was decent. It gave me this rush of relief and accomplishment that I’d done it, that it had gone okay, and that I got laughs. Then I started wondering if I could enjoy it more next time, maybe even do better. That first time I was so crippled with nerves I didn’t really let myself enjoy it – I was very robotic.

In the book you mention turning Strictly down a few times before finally saying yes, and how worried you were that it could go badly – even describing it as potential ‘career suicide’. Of course, it turned out to be the complete opposite. Looking back now, how do you reflect on that journey, from all those doubts at the start to ultimately winning the show?

A lot of people, when they think of someone who is blind – or even just someone with a disability – instinctively feel sorry for them. They feel sad, sympathetic, and the expectations can be pretty low. Most people don’t actually have a blind person in their circle, so I’m very aware that, for many, I might be the only blind person they see functioning in everyday life. That’s why it’s always been important to me not to elicit pity or sadness, but to show that blind people are far more ‘normal’, far more like everyone else, than they might imagine – and capable of far more than they’d expect.

Strictly gave me the chance to do that on a level that would have been impossible otherwise. But the risk was also huge. I honestly didn’t know if I could do it. I didn’t know what level of ability was needed. Looking back now, I can’t believe we pulled it off. I wrote in the book that it’s the proudest moment of my life, because it was so far out of my comfort zone and so unknown.

Even that very first dance – the cha-cha-cha – was terrifying. Everyone else can just Google past routines and think, ‘Oh, that’s what I’m doing’. I had no clue. I didn’t know what any of the dances even looked like until we were in the studio learning them.

Everything else I’ve done has felt like a stepping stone. I wrote and starred in a film for Sky with Lee Mack, Bad Tidings – something I’d never done before – but it was still a natural progression from comedy. Strictly, though, was just this mad f***ing thing I had no idea about. I mean, I was used to headbanging in mosh pits, not doing ballroom!

Were you surprised by the public response to your appearance on Strictly? What were some of the messages you received?

I had no idea that Strictly would be so emotional. I didn’t expect other people to find it emotional, and I certainly didn’t expect to feel that way myself – but I did, at the end of every dance. It was a lot. I never imagined people would cry at dancing! But the messages poured in: ‘I’m in bits every time you dance’.

When we did ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, I even had Man United and Everton fans messaging me saying, ‘I f***ing hate you – can’t believe you made me cry to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. I’ll never forgive you for this!’ It was tongue in cheek, affectionate. Gerry Marsden’s daughter sent me a lovely message, saying how proud he would have been of what we did with his song. We even had a message from the John Lennon estate, saying how proud they were of our interpretation of ‘Instant Karma’ and the message it sent out.

And then there were so many messages from the public – people who had experienced grief, people living with eating disorders, those who hadn’t left the house in months, people struggling with addiction. They’d write: ‘Watching you and Dianne every week, seeing you overcome your fear, has made me realise I can get out there and do more’. I never expected that kind of response.

At the end of the book I wrote that if I’d done this [an autobiography] three years earlier, there’d have been no ending. But now there is – this mad thing happened, and it connected with people in ways I never thought possible. It probably sounds a bit wishy-washy for someone who grew up in Liverpool in the ’80s, doesn’t it? [laughs]

You were back on Strictly for the launch show – what was it like to perform with Dianne again? Did you get a chance to practice beforehand?

Me and Di went back for a day together, just to get the dance back in my head. It was great to return – lovely to see everyone again, and also the new contestants, all carrying the same fear I’d had at the start. This time, though, it felt good performing with no pressure. I still never quite know if I’ve done a good job. We did ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, and because it was pre-recorded we had the chance to do it twice. I wasn’t sure if Di was happy with it, but afterwards she said, ‘That’s the best one you’ve ever done’. That meant a lot. It was really nice to go back, perform, and feel like I’d done it well.

I know it’s still early days, but has anyone caught your eye as a potential winner yet?

I’ll always be supporting Di, of course, and I grew up watching Stefan Dennis on Neighbours. But outside of the obvious, last year I met Harry, the Gladiator, and he’s so lovely and genuine that I think he’ll come across really well – he’s got a winning personality.

And then there’s Karen Carney, who did brilliantly in the first episode. We actually used to be neighbours in Surbiton – we met during Covid. It would be pretty mad if there were two consecutive winners from the same street, wouldn’t it?

Keep Laughing is out now, published by Penguin Random House. Chris will bring his ‘Yonks!’ tour to the Philharmonic Hall on 11 April 2026