BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty is following in the footsteps of her BBC colleague Carol Kirkwood by joining Strictly Come Dancing.
Like Carol, she’s also partnered with Pasha Kovalev. Did she pick up any tips from her colleague?
“Carol Kirkwood has given me a couple of really good tips. One just enjoy it don’t worry what anybody thinks about you as a dancer because we are not dancers, we are trying to learn to dance but we are not dancers. It’s not going to be a judgement on you as a person it’s just going to be a judgement on your dancing, you’re being given the best opportunity to learn so just enjoy it.”
What are Naga’s reasons for wanting to be part of Strictly?
“I think if anyone offers to teach you how to dance, by a professional, you’d be mad to say no. As scary as it is, and it is a really scary prospect, I think as someone who loves learning new things and trying to be the best I can and live life, this is an opportunity to live life and just enjoy it and so I couldn’t say no, it would have been churlish to say no.”
She may be keen but can Naga actually dance? Speaking about her skills she says: “Pop me in a night club or on the dance floor and I’ll just throw myself round and love it, so I’m enthusiastic. For enthusiasm I get ten out of ten. I had two dance lessons twelve years ago with my then fiancé James, before we got married because James doesn’t embrace dancing, so I wanted us to not look completely out of sync when we did our first dance but we went a bit too far the other way. The routine we learnt over only two lessons was a little bit too choreographed and a little bit too much for us to take on I think on our wedding day. The bit that came where we could just go a bit mad and not be formal I went a bit mad and went flying in the air in a puff of wedding dress and landed on my butt and James gallantly came over and picked me up!”
Watch Naga and Pasha’s first steps below:
Strictly Come Dancing 2016 returns at 9pm on Friday and 6.30pm on Saturday.
