Mark Benton reveals why he’s still using the skills he learned on Strictly Come Dancing

Former Waterloo Road star Mark Benton says the skills he learned during his time on Strictly Come Dancing are still coming in useful.

The Teesside actor appeared in the BBC dance show two years ago and surprised many by going all the way to week 10 of the competition with partner Iveta Lukosiute.

Those long, tiring days in practise weren’t in vain, he came to realise, during rehearsals for his latest role in the stage version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Based on the hit 1988 comedy starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, there’s plenty of song and dance numbers in this new production and it all came rather easily to the 49-year-old Middlesbrough man.

“I like to class myself as a dancer-performer now,” he smiled.

“I get to do a big dance number in the second half of the show and I picked it up quite easily.

“Obviously something from Strictly rubbed off but I even surprised myself when it came to learning this dance.

“When I look back at Strictly all of the pain is forgotten and it’s just the good times you remember.

“The dancing was what I always loved about the experience, like getting a dance step right after practising it all day.”

What isn’t quite so spot-on as Mark’s fancy footwork is his accent in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where he plays corrupt French police chief Andre.

“My French accent is somewhere between Peter Sellers and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, but I realised quite early on that if it slips a little or I do it badly, it gets a good laugh.

“I can get away with that since it’s a comedy.”

Set in the French Riviera, the decadent world of sophisticated conman Lawrence Jamieson is at risk with the arrival of larger-than-life Freddy Benson, a conman of an entirely different order.

Soon realising the town isn’t big enough for both of them, they find themselves going head to head in the biggest con of their lives, as they bid for the affections of millionaire soap heiress Christine Colgate.

“I’m the right-hand man of Lawrence, who was the Michael Caine character in the movie and is played here by Michael Praed from Robin of Sherwood, who has a great singing voice.

“Freddy is played by Noel Sullivan, who everyone will know from Hear’Say, but he’s a fantastic actor as well and gets lots of laughs.

“This role is a little different for me, because I get to be the love interest for a change, which is nice.”

Dad-of-three Mark is looking forward to coming to Glasgow after spending plenty of time in Scotland over the years.

“My mum was Scottish, she was from Saltcoats, so I spent a lot of time there as a child.

“I hold the place in close affection and feel like an honorary Scotsman.

“I performed in Hairspray in Glasgow and the crowd was just great. It’s my second favourite place to perform after Sunderland, which is the nearest tour stop to my hometown.”

Mark also filmed in Scotland while part of Waterloo Road.

He’d only been in the role of maths teacher Daniel Chalk for a year when the BBC production was moved to Greenock from Rochdale.

“I had signed a contract, so there was no question of me not moving up to do it, but being in Glasgow actually suited me better anyway because it gave me an easier commute to my home in London than it did from Manchester, because the airport was close by.

“And when I had any downtime, I would just jump in the car and head off into the countryside and explore. It was beautiful.”

After Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Mark will go into rehearsals for a National Theatre production of As You Like It.

But Mark had decided at the beginning of the year that he would give the stage a miss in 2015 and concentrate on adding to his lengthy small screen CV, which includes roles in Kavanagh QC, Doctor Who, Murphy’s Law, Silent Witness and Hustle.

“I’d said I wasn’t doing any theatre this year and wanted to get back to television, but then Dirty Rotten Scoundrels came along and the National Theatre,” he explained.

“Some things you just can’t turn down and I like to keep stretching myself. If I’m in the first week of rehearsals and thinking, ‘I can’t do this’, that’s a good sign because it means I need to keep pushing.”