Comedian Chris McCausland came close to having a thrilling career far, far, away from the spotlight.
The standup and TV host has made history after becoming the first-ever blind contest to feature on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. He says he's 'massively apprehensive' about taking to the dance floor and admitted he'd never watched the show before.
"I don't know what I'm getting myself into," he revealed. "I don't dance, I have never danced. I grew up with headbanging and mosh pits." But his nerves about perfecting the Tango or acing the Waltz don't come close to the pressure he would have been under if he had been successful with an earlier job application...
In an interview with the Guardian last year, Chris, aged 47, was asked to confirm whether he really applied to become a spy. "Yes," he replied. "I got down to the last 30 out of 3,000 for MI5 selection.
"Eventually, I got refused because of my eyesight. Fair play. It's perfectly acceptable to discriminate for the safety of the nation. The job was identifying and targeting terrorist threats, which obviously you need to do in a limited amount of time."
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Chris explains his 007-style bosses were concerned that it would take him too long to complete his high-risk tasks so ended up offering the job to another candidate (James Bond?). "I was like: 'OK, that's reasonable. I don't want that burden around my neck'," he added.
Instead of sipping on martinis and saving the world, Chris will now be slipping into glittery outfits and fighting for his life to stay on the dance floor. He'll compete against the likes of Olympic swimmer Tom Dean, Love Island star Tasha Ghouri, and X Factor winner Shayne Ward.
Speaking to the Mirror ahead of the BBC show's launch tonight, comedian Chris explained that producers had originally offered to have a representative from an organisation teaching people with visual impairments help co-ordinate training between himself and his partner. However, he admitted he "didn't like the idea" and said that he was up for "blundering his way through" training.
Chris, 47, went on to say that he was happy to make mistakes and for himself and his professional dance partner teach each other something new.
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