Forget the dance floor – Janette Manrara’s life requires faster footwork than any jive. Not only has she just finished hosting the Strictly Come Dancing Tour and packed up her beloved family home in Cheshire after moving back down south, this week she went straight into rehearsals to play murderess Roxie Hart in the Chicago stage show.
It is touring until August 30 but Janette has a four-week break halfway through to dance in 19 cities with her husband and Strictly star Aljaž Škorjanec in their A Night To Remember show.
If that wasn’t enough, Cuban-American Janette, 41, is also raising 18-month-old baby Lyra and studying to make the UK officially home.
I’m exhausted thinking about it but Janette beams, fresh-faced and make-up free, as we start our video chat.
“I’m very conscious of my health and burnout,” she tells me, “so I’m taking it day by day. But Chicago was too much of an incredible opportunity. It’s always been my dream to play Roxie.
“The biggest concern was Lyra and our family. So Aljaž is gonna come and stay with me as much as he can throughout the tour with her.
“Of course, I’m gonna miss her terribly because I’m used to being with her all the time. But we have a family holiday coming up soon, and she’s with us when we tour together.”
Janette breaks out into another big smile. “Everything else I can survive,” she says. “I’m used to busy-crazy schedules. That doesn’t scare me.”
So why move house now, especially when everything is so hectic?
“With Aljaž being back on Strictly and me doing It Takes Two, we found it really difficult to commute with Lyra,” she says.
“Aljaž was staying in hotels all the time. It was better for us to come back towards London but the countryside is still the way forward, for Lyra to wake up to birds chirping and to greenery and trees. It’s a lifestyle that we fell in love with and we don’t want to lose.”
She unpacked most of the rooms in two days. “You should have seen us!” she laughs. “I wanted to leave him and Lyra as comfortable as possible while I’m rehearsing for Chicago.
“Nowadays, there is no one-way system toparenting. Aljaž and I really co-parent. So right now he’s holding the reins being Superdad while I’m doing Chicago, then I’m Supermum when he’s doing Strictly.
“You can’t have a happy, healthy child if you don’t have happy, healthy parents first. I think Lyra’s growing up seeing her mum and dad doing what they love for a living. I think that’s a healthy thing for her.”
Aljaž and Janette were already a couple when they joined BBC1’s Strictly in 2013. They married in 2017 in separate ceremonies in the UK, the US and Slovenia, where Aljaž was born.
I tell Janette I’ve met him twice and he was ridiculously lovely on both occasions. Is he really like that all the time? “Yeah, he is, honestly,” she says. “He is a very good egg.
“He’s an amazing husband and father. He’s my best friend. We bicker – we’re human beings – but we talk a lot and I think that’s always been our strength as a couple. Whenever there is an issue or something coming up, we sit and we talk about it as mates. That’s our way forward to survive life’s ups and downs.”
Amid wider revelations about abuse of power in the arts, Strictly has weathered allegations of bullying, while Janette found herself embroiled in a media frenzy after Welsh opera star Wynne Evans, a 2024 Strictly contestant, retired from this year’s tour andapologised for making an “inappropriate and unacceptable” comment to her at a photoshoot.
Janette politely declines to discuss the episode but she says of abuses of power and bullying more generally: “I have been really fortunate in my career that I’ve never had to experience anything like that. But I’m very happy to see that as a society whatever it is – whether that’s the theatre,television or corporate worlds – there are at least conversations being had to move forward in the right direction.
“That something will come out of what you say, and it’s OK to say what you need to say.”
She adds: “The toughest thing I ever experienced in showbiz is what everybody experiences – you get told ‘no’ a million times until finally somebody gives you a chance. One of my favourite quotes is, ‘Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.’ You kind of need a bit of both in life, you need a bit of luck.”
Back to the more pressing domestic matters, I wonder if she ever catches Aljaž dancing their daughter around the house?
“All the time,” she laughs. “He always says that she’s his favourite partner now, not me. He loves a foxtrot so when he says to Lyra, ‘Five, six, seven…’ she knows it’s coming and her eyes light up. It’s really cute.”
Janette is busier than ever in an industry that traditionally ages out women and keeps them in supporting roles. When Strictly launched in 2004, it seemed perfectly normal for a 75-year-old Sir Bruce Forsyth to be partnered with Tess Daly, then 35. When he retired in 2010 and Claudia Winkleman took his place, it felt somehow risky. But for Janette, it was a game-changer.
She says: “I felt really, really proud to be part of Strictly that day, to have a huge Saturday primetime TV show hosted by two women. The show tries to break barriers, gives opportunities where they should be given.
“You can really feel as a woman you’re appreciated. Or anyone.
“Johannes [Radebe] has done numbers on Strictly in a dress and heels. We’ve had two men dancing together, two women. We had a blind winner and a deaf winner. It’s phenomenal to see the inclusivity and changes the show has made to what’s considered normal in the world of television.
It’s beautiful and powerful. It gives you hope that society is moving in the right direction.”
Janette also pays tribute to how Tess and Claudia encouraged her when she made the transition from dancer to host of BBC2 spin-off show It Takes Two.
“First of all,” she says, “every single professional dancer contacted me on the day it was announced. They were genuinely so chuffed. It was so wonderful because there wasn’t an inch of envy or jealousy. Everyone was just so happy for me. It was the same with Tess and Claudia, so supportive.
“When I saw them, they said, ‘Oh my God, tell us everything’. It was just so lovely to feel that sense of warmth and love from them as two women leading primetime Saturday telly. Nowit’s me and Fleur [East] presenting It Takes Two, they have a sense of pride in what we are doing as well.”
It’s easy to be cynical at the perennial declarations that Strictly is a “family” and people have made “friends for life” but Janette’s face lights up when she says “the love and support is beautiful because Aljaž and I have no family here.
“Our friends, especially from Strictly, have become our extended family”.
Not only that but the UK has truly become home, she says, and it’s “heaven” to be an honorary Brit.
But, ever ambitious, the 5ft-high star has other aspirations she wants to achieve. “I’m doing two things while I’m in Chicago, besides smashing Roxie Hart!” she says. “I’m getting my driving licence and studying for my citizenship.
“I feel British. My daughter was born here and has a British passport. We’ve been living here for the last 13 years. Since I came to the UK in 2011, on tour with Burn The Floor, I feel connected to this country and the people.
“I feel a huge, huge sense of community – that people in their hearts and souls want to really look out for one another. I’ve never been more proud of being a part of a country that believes in charitable work and community service. And I personally have not felt a bigger appreciation for the arts, dance,theatre, film than in the UK.”
I remind her that her fame-hungry, husband-killing alter-ego Roxie Hart isn’t exactly the caring, sharing type. She laughs and says: “I keep making jokes that Roxie and I have a lot in common and it’s scaring me.
“But she is excited about life. She’s a survivor and fights for the things that she believes in – maybe not necessarily in the right way – but you can’t help but love that spirit. And I feel like I’ve always been that kind of person.
“Coming from Cuban immigrant parents in Miami, I saw them fight for their dreams like I’ve been throughout my whole life.
“I’m very fortunate that I’ve got thick skin but I thought being Latina, a bit shorter and having an accent was a downfall.
“But then [US TV show] So You Think You Can Dance loved all those things about me that I didn’t realise were actually superpowers.
“I’ve never competed in Latin or Ballroom but Strictly saw it as a strength because I was a very good storyteller. And now there’s a huge part of me that’s going, ‘Oh my God, I am actually playing Roxie Hart!’ So I’m living my own dream, in a lot of ways, the way she does.”
The show, set in the 1920s and written by John Kander and Fred Ebb in 1975, also examines the darker side of fame and celebrity.
“Unfortunately, society has not changed that much in that aspect,” Janette says. “You’re stillgetting those headlines, people wanting to see someone’s career fall apart. They want the dirt. They want the curtain to fall. It’s a reminder to be kinder. To not search for those awful negative headlines and find the loveliness of humanity.”
She smiles and adds: “Chicago is a mirror of how we behave as a society and it’s through facing our own demons that we learn to be better – hopefully, you know, without women murdering men to give them a career and some kind of life!”
Janette plays Roxie Hart in the Chicago UK and Ireland tour from March 3. See chicagothe musical.com/uk-tour for more information
