Newsreader and Strictly star Krishnan Guru-Murthy recounts teen laughs on stage
Lipstick as gaudy as the flowers on his garland, arms swaying as breezily as the grass of his skirt, a coconut-wearing Krishnan Guru-Murthy proves in these snaps from his schooldays he might just have what it takes to lift the Strictly glitterball.
If the man-in-the-tie newsreader can unearth his inner teenager again. Not to mention that pout. Chatting between rehearsals this week with his dance partner Lauren Oakley, the Channel 4 News anchor, 53, reminisced about a foray into musical theatre in his late teens, and happily produced the evidence. He perhaps sensed I was struggling to picture it...
“This is 17-year-old me in South Pacific playing Luther Billis in the school musical at Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School,” he explains. It may have been 35 years ago, but behind the journalist who has reported from war zones and taken politicians to task – including at the Tory conference in Manchester this week – it does seem there’s a showman poised to hula out.
Krishnan in the 90s as his TV career hits groove (REX/Shutterstock)
Krishnan and Lauren on Strictly (PA)Explaining that dalliance with musicals at school in Blackburn, Lancs – there were maybe three – he says: “I had to do a song and dance number but a kind of comedy one where you’re playing a bloke dressing up as a woman in a very obvious way. It was quite funny. I don’t think I’ve done anything like that since.”
He reflects: “It’s kind of a weird thing, Strictly, you regress into your childhood and so you reach into the dark recesses of being young and performing and having fewer inhibitions. All of that stuff is trained out of you as you get older, especially when you work in the news. So it’s time to remember that slightly carefree version of yourself.”
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Krishnan, whose smile has been infectious since he joined Strictly, clearly began remembering in week one, dancing the cha-cha-cha with gleeful abandon and clear rhythm. “That came as a surprise to everyone else!” he laughs.
Krishnan in the South Pacific in 1988Last week, the glee got a bit lost with the foxtrot. But this week, Movie Week, he and Lauren, 32, are practising the Charleston, and will dance to Cabaret’s Money Money. Time to tap into that musical flair again, albeit without coconuts.
“It’s very cheeky and comedic. I’m having a great time,” he says. Lauren agrees. “The foxtrot didn’t come as naturally but the Charleston is sitting really well in his body,” she says. “It’s playtime, make-believe.”
What sounds like make-believe is Krishnan’s experience of presenting the Channel 4 News from the Conservative Party Conference. It included doing a Charleston with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, minutes before grilling her on HS2.
“The thing I’ve really noticed is Strictly does change how people relate to you, including politicians. People are much warmer,” he says. “Gillian was refreshingly carefree!”
Krishnan with his wife Lisa in 2016 (Getty Images Europe)We pause for a moment’s reflection. And was she… any good? “I could see the beginnings of something,” says Krishnan. This chat is nothing if not surprising. But then, the nation doesn’t know that much about Krishnan. Many of us grew up watching him on BBC’s Newsround from 1991 to 1994. From there the Oxford graduate worked for Newsnight, joining Channel 4 News in 1998.
He considered acting, and at 17, he lost out to play opposite Shirley MacLaine, in the 1988 film Madame Sousatzka, to Navin Chowdhry, now of EastEnders. He studied PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) – although his parents had favoured medicine. His father, a NHS radiologist, still works, despite turning 90 next month.
His health has been one of the factors to join Strictly, and his parents, wife Lisa and children, 18 and 16, are delighted. He and his dad share a congenital defect, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which can cause sudden heart failure and led to the death of one of his cousins recently. He also has Crohn’s disease, a bowel condition.
Krishnan pictured in 2002 (Francesco Guidicini/REX/Shutterstock)Before Strictly he lost over two stone. “I’d kind of been burning the candle a bit at both ends for most of my life and just allowing myself to get overweight, and I decided it was time to not give up and die!” he half-laughs. It turns out his heart problem isn’t such a concern as feared.
“The thing to worry about is having a raised heart beat for a long time,” he says, “but the dances are less than two minutes. And Lauren is very considerate.” “Absolutely,” she agrees. “I’m here to coach and look after you.”
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She’s been encouraging him each morning to write down two things he’s proud of. “As a Strictly celeb there is a temptation to get inside yourself and be insecure,” he explains. And if Lauren can get him thinking like carefree Krishnan with the coconuts again, well, watch out, glitterball.
Strictly Come Dancing on Sunday night, BBC One, 6.20pm. The Results show follows on Monday, BBC One, 7.15pm.
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