Wherever Joe McFadden goes, all everyone wants to chat to him about, is Strictly.
“When I’m out and about, and people stop me, or at the stage door - especially in Scotland - it is all they want to ask me about,” he says, smiling.
“I managed to see some of the last series – Katya was amazing with Lewis [Cope, Emmerdale actor] and I thought she was in with a really good chance of winning it again. She just had a bad week with that salsa.”
He laughs. “I mean, to my eyes, it was still a brilliant dance but when you have set the bar as high as Lewis did from week one, they’re waiting for you to put a foot wrong,” he says, adding wryly: “It was great to see someone dancing with Katya that was as good as her choreography, which perhaps wasn’t the case in my year…”
As the Strictly Live tour arrives in Glasgow, Joe is busy with an entirely different role.
He is playing Andy Dufresne, the central character of The Shawshank Redemption - a globally successful movie which regularly tops ‘best film of all time’ lists - in the stage version of the story, which is coming to Glasgow in March.
The role was made famous on screen in 1994 by Tim Robbins and Joe acknowledges the character achieves a lot by doing very little.
“So many things are happening to Andy, but he doesn’t say very much, especially at the start of the play,” he explains.
“He is reactive, just watching, sussing out how to be. Andy has had the worst things happen to him – the murder of his wife, being locked up for a crime he did not commit in this most brutal of places.”
He adds: “But he is a banker, very smart and methodical, and very much in his own head. It is interesting to play someone like that, someone who uses his energy so economically.”
By contrast, energy fizzes from McFadden, a versatile actor better known for a string of TV drama and musical theatre roles, as well as winning Strictly Come Dancing in 2017 with professional partner Katya Jones.
It was Camille Skilling, McFadden’s drama teacher at Holyrood Secondary School on the Southside of Glasgow, who suggested he try out for a part on crime drama Taggart. He was 12 at the time, and acting was not on his radar – he had assumed he would follow his dad and brother into the building trade.
The excitement of being part of Taggart was the spark, and McFadden landed subsequent roles in Scottish soap Take the High Road, cult Glasgow gang film Small Faces, and drama series The Crow Road.
Since then, he has rarely been out of work, switching between period TV dramas like Cranford, with Judi Dench and Michael Gambon, and long-running series such as Heartbeat and Holby City, to musical theatre in London’s West End: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Rent, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and The Rocky Horror Show, among others.
The cast on the UK tour of The Shawshank Redemption also includes Ben Onwukwe as inmate Ellis “Red” Redding, played on screen by Morgan Freeman, and Bill Ward as the corrupt prison warden Stammas.
“The cast are amazing, it’s a real pleasure going on stage and seeing what everyone is doing every night,” says McFadden. “I love doing tours like this, where you are just really proud of the work.
“It’s great to be able to bring these shows to Scotland. Bill Kenwright productions are as good as anything you will see in the West End.”
Recently, Joe took part in the first Glasgow Telly Festival, organised by producer Claire Duffy in the wake of BBC Scotland cancelling long-running drama series River City.
“It was a really interesting idea, a good showcase for writers who have a script sitting in a drawer somewhere, to help them get their work out there,” says McFadden.
“If it nurtures Scottish talent, it can only be a good thing. As a platform for actors, crew and writers, River City was fantastic. Maybe it’s time to do another long-running Scottish show.”
McFadden, who rarely discusses his private life, announced on his social media pages recently that he was engaged, to artist Rob Smales. A big wedding is far from on the cards, though, he says, visibly paling at the thought.
“The idea of being the centre of attention fills me with horror a little bit,” he says, adding with a laugh: “I know that’s a strange thing for an actor to say. But yeah, big meals and speeches ... I might change my mind, but at the moment I’m thinking we’ll just run away to Gretna Green or Vegas.”
He pauses. “Maybe it’s because I always assumed it was never going to happen,” he says, slowly.
“Growing up in Glasgow, in the 80s - men weren’t getting married to each other, so I always just thought that’s not on the cards for me, it’s something that happens to other people. It wasn’t a thing.”
He brightens. “But now it is, and hopefully will always continue to be.”
The Shawshank Redemption is at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow from March 24 to 28.
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