Lorraine: Danny Mac backs Oti Mabuse to be a Strictly judge
He’d given just a handful of performances in the Richard Gere role in Pretty Woman the musical when the curtain came down on the West End. Literally. This was March 2020.
“People were urged to stay at home because of Covid,” says Danny Mac, “and that killed theatre in an instant.” The show didn’t resume until July the following year.
But looking back now, Danny, 35, views the pandemic as “a beautiful disaster”.
Professionally it was catastrophic, he says. “But, on a personal level, it came as a welcome respite. I was in my early 30s.
“I’d been married to Carley Stenson a year-and-a-half although we’d been together for six years. But we hadn’t really had an opportunity to spend much continuous time with each other, just the two of us, because of our careers.
“So, it was nice to stop. This industry is a bit of a rat race. There’s always the feeling you’ve got to be ahead of the game.
“But suddenly it meant you weren’t looking over your shoulder the whole time. We were all in the same boat.”
What about on the home front? Did he make himself useful round the house?
He laughs. “More than that. We built a house. I can’t say I did so with my own hands, but I was project manager.”
When he was a toddler, Danny moved with his family from Bromley to Bognor Regis. And that’s where he and fellow actor Carley live when they aren’t on the road. “Having such a crazy life, we like being pulled back to Bognor.” His family live next door and the star couple’s new home is large enough to accommodate Carley’s friends and relations visiting from Wigan.
As Danny played Dodger Savage in Hollyoaks from 2011 to 2015, and Carley played Steph Roach from 2000 to 2010, it is often assumed the couple met on set.
“But it’s just not true,” he says.
“We never overlapped. In fact, we met in a pub in London when she was appearing in Legally Blonde.”
They married in 2017. Then in the autumn of 2020 Carley fell pregnant, giving birth to daughter Skye in June 2021.
His face breaks into a smile. “It has been the greatest experience of my life. In many ways, Skye saved me from myself, gave
me a new focus. Suddenly there was someone in my life more important than anyone or anything else.
“Up until that point and with all due deference to my darling wife, if she’d ever asked me which was more important, her or my job, I honestly think I might have said it was my work. Lockdown began to alter that and then Skye changed my priorities out of all recognition. The pressures and stresses you carry as a performer are selfish, narcissistic. Skye made me see that.
“When my current show finishes its run, I don’t have anything lined up apart from a couple of Proms concerts.
“But I don’t care. My life has a different orientation now.”
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So far Carley has shouldered the bulk of the childcare while Danny’s been working.
“Being away from home and leaving a new mum to cope with the baby was tough. We both struggled in different ways.”
So how would he feel about being a stay-at-home dad if his wife landed a job?
“Not a problem. We can always call on the help of a couple of brilliant close friends. My mum Jan is a hospice nurse and a highly capable pair of hands… and she lives next door!”
Bognor is also handy for Danny’s next project. From the beginning of June for three weeks, he will be appearing in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, down the road in Chichester, “just 20 minutes away”.
He plays John Wilkes Booth, the man who shot Abraham Lincoln. The conceit of the piece is that it gathers together other famous assassins – Lee Harvey Oswald (President Kennedy’s killer), John Hinckley (attempted assassin of President Reagan) and so on – ignoring their dates of birth.
To play Booth convincingly, says Danny, he had to understand the man’s motivation.
“To our modern way of thinking, he was a horrible man. The reason he wanted Lincoln dead was because of the President’s opposition to slavery. Our attitude to white supremacy has altered radically, and thank God for that.
“But back then, America was in the grip of the Civil War, North against South, and Booth believed in maintaining the status quo. I knew I couldn’t play him with a mask and cape because he wasn’t a villain.
“I have to find the truth of this man, someone prepared to die for what he believed in.
“And that was that Lincoln killed over 600,000 people by creating this war. If the same thing happened here and the prime minister had pursued a policy that resulted in as many deaths, there’d have been any number of candidates wanting to put a bullet in his head.
“So, I have to play Booth as a principled man standing up for what he believed in.”
He adds: “To this day, there’s a view that, if he hadn’t shot the President, Lincoln might not have been hailed the hero that history judges him to be.”
Nor was Booth a lawless madman. “He was a distinguished actor from a good family. I’ve got to present Booth as a three-dimensional figure.”
To help him inhabit the role, Danny has grown a beard which only enhances his dashing good looks. With his piercing blue eyes and black, slicked-back hair, it’s easy to see why he was cast in Pretty Woman – and why he scored such a hit when he appeared on Strictly in 2016.
But he had a “problem”. He was so good from the get-go that there was little room for him to embark on the dreaded journey, improving before our eyes each week.
The result was he came joint second with Louise Redknapp, both of them trailing eventual winners, Ore Oduba and Joanne Clifton. As it happens, Strictly has been much on his mind lately with the death of head judge Len Goodman.
“It came as a shock. I didn’t even know he was ill but, in a way, that was typical of the man – he wouldn’t have wanted a fuss.”
Danny only has good things to say about Len. “He was a gorgeous soul, a true gentleman, with a very special energy. I was in his last series and I’m so grateful for that.
“He was front and centre, the focus of the show. His legacy will live on for ever.”
But he was by no means a pushover.
“There’s a fleet of taxis that ferries contestants and judges to and from filming and Len was always checking up on the contestants. He’d ask his driver who was putting the hours in, who’d been rehearsing all day long and who was a bit more casual.
“If someone didn’t do their best dance but they’d been working hard in the
week, he’d show them respect. But, if they weren’t up to scratch and they hadn’t put in the hours, he’d give them a hard time.
“Away from the cameras, if he wanted to have a verbal scrap it was all on the table.
“There was no unpleasantness, he was just upfront. A sad loss.”
Five years from now, where does Danny see himself? “Maybe having branched out into directing or landing a major role in a TV drama. And I’d love to work with Carley – it’s something we’ve never done.”
So, he’s happy? “God yes, but also terrified because I’m an actor and because it’s not just me anymore. I’m a dad now.
“Skye has made my life more highly coloured than it’s ever been. She’s given my life an extra edge. But I’m not complaining. This is what I want. This is how I’m built.”
- Assassins runs from June 3 to 24 at Chichester Festival Theatre 01243 781312 cft.org.uk
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