This year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing has drawn to a close, with Hamza Yassin and his partner Jowita Przystał coming out on top and taking home the coveted Glitter Ball Trophy, Tom Chambers knows exactly how they feel.
For after seven years struggling to make it, victory on the dance floor changed Tom’s life overnight, putting an end to the relentless round of auditions and rejection, which saw him working as a lorry driver, window cleaner and delivering pizzas as he tried to make ends meet.
"It’s life changing, because you’ve spent all those years grafting without anything to really show for it,” Tom says frankly. “I lost count of the number of times I auditioned for a musical. You all turn up in the morning and you do the dance. If you get through the dance you stay over the lunch break and in the afternoon, you do the singing. I never got to the afternoon. I remember being in a group of 60 people and my name not being called out and then going home.
