Chris McCausland explains why comedy pals could be laughing all the way to the bank

Strictly Come Dancing star Chris McCausland says comedy pals are all behind him

Strictly star Chris McCausland says he is thrilled to have the backing of a host of comedians - including Lee Mack who thinks he is laughing all the way to the bank.

Chris, 47, is now odds-on favourite to lift the Glitterball and Would I Lie To You funnyman Lee was convinced he would do well. He backed Chris to win at the start at big odds.

Asked about his growing number of supporters, Chris said: "Lee Mack sent me a message saying, ‘I'm f***ing glad I bet on you weeks ago!’. The odds were better than they are now. He bet on me before the series even started. He sent me a message after our first dance saying he was so glad he put on a bet on me before anyone else had seen me dance! So he’s quids in if we do win!

"But I've had some lovely messages from loads of comedians and all that. And it's nice because there's not a lot of comedians who do this, so you are kind of representing, you know, the circuit as well. I've got 20 years on the circuit and it's a really good environment and a really good place to develop as a comedian. And there's so many great people out there and they're really supportive, so it's nice to be able to represent them as well, you know."

Chris also admitted as a comic used to playing late night gigs he has had to stay focused in the interview sections too.

He said with a grin: "I'm very good at policing myself for daytime, you know, and this show is daytime, really, isn't it? It's much harder when you do something like The Last Leg, which is live and it's 10:00 p.m. You've kind of got to be edgy and inappropriate, but not ruin your career. That's a harder line to walk than just being family friendly, which I'm a good judge of. But I tell you what, though, some things I just don't tell them I'm gonna say because I know they'll tell me not to because I know they will worry. So I didn't tell them I was gonna talk about Dianne kicking me in the head because I knew they go, ‘oh, please don't say that’. But I knew it would be funny."

Chris wowed fans again at the weekend, kicking off Halloween week with a lively samba to Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees.

Dressed in a sparkly suit and frazzled wig, the stand-up grooved along the floor in between gravestones with his partner Dianne Buswell to pick up a score of 26.

He has previously told the Mirror he would not want to win on a sympathy vote and instead wants to get through on merit.

He said: "I said no to this a few times because I just didn't think I'd be able to do it. I thought it was one step too far. You know, I don't want to be the sympathy vote. I don't mind being a bad dancer. I don't mind people laughing at me because I'm a comical dancer or a bad dancer, but I didn't want it to be a calamity because I can't see. And so it did take a little while to kind of acclimatise myself to the idea of doing this."

Pro partner Dianne insists they are not thinking about winning for now. She added: "Literally, each week as it comes, we have so much to think about in one week that it would be bonkers for us to think about a glitter ball or the final. We genuinely have enough on our plate week by week to keep our brains busy. So, honestly, we just want to keep on doing as good a job as we can for as long as we can. Whether that is to the final, whether that’s a few more weeks, whether that's lifting the glitter ball, whatever it is, as long as we both feel really good about what we've achieved. For me, it's about Chris walking away from this experience going, ‘I actually was so much better than I ever thought I could be’, and I already know that's what people think. And so we already feel like we've done so much that each thing we do now is just an added bonus."

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