For music theatre and TV star Lisa McCune, the chance to take to the floor on Dancing with the Stars represented both her universes in a quick-step harmony.
And it has proven the chance to get back to doing what she loves most -entertaining.
“Doing this show has reminded me a little bit, like when I do theatre. It reminds you that we’re entertainers, and I think that two worlds collided a little bit doing this. My musical background collided with television. I don’t read a huge amount of comments online. I could be being annihilated online, but the people who I speak to are really enjoying it,” she tells TV Tonight.
“My son Oliver has a group of kids come in Sunday night and they sit down and they watch Dancing with the Stars in their pajamas, and it’s super cute. So it’s entertainment, and I like that. It’s not a nasty kind of show either.”
A seasoned musicals star, she has also been reminded that any early advantage in dance from her teen years studying at the WA Academy of Performing Arts is quickly eclipsed.
“I guess the advantage in having done some of it before is that you know how to count and you know how to move. But partnering with somebody in such an intimate way, you have to move as a couple. The discipline, the precision and the technical side of this kind of dancing is really different, because you don’t tend to do that as much in other disciplines.
“Next week I do the Veniennese Waltz, which has got these things called fleckerls in them, and they’re really hard. So people really appreciate the fact that you’re doing the fleckerls, whereas people at home, who don’t know dancing wouldn’t know what they were. But when that’s why it was great dancing with Ian Waite, because he takes it really seriously.”
In Sunday’s penultimate episode she competes alongside remaining competitors, Adam Dovile, Ant Middleton, Ben Cousins, James Stewart, Nikki Osborne, Samantha Jade and Shane Crawford. McCune welcomed the feedback from judges Helen Richey, Craig Revel Horwood, Sharna Burgess and Mark Wilson, likening it to directors’ notes.
“I’ve always been a fan of Helen and I must say, it was, it was a real pleasure to meet her. She’s somebody who has been doing it all her life, and she’s got such a deep respect from everybody around her. Her husband, who was there for the filming, sat in the same seat every night. I really enjoyed talking to him,” she continues.
“Craig is hysterical. I think he’s brilliant, Sharna is beautiful. I’d never come across her before but when you Google and see the work that she’s done… and Mark was beautiful as well.
“I certainly didn’t have a problem with the notes. I kind of thrived on that a little bit. So it’s just a shame that you had nowhere to put them, because you couldn’t go and do the dance again.
“I’d love to go back and give it another crack.”
She also credits producer Peter Beck for luring her back into the Seven fold for the series, a request she initially turned down.
“Peter’s the reason that I came to do the show. He reached out and my initial reaction was no, but then he got on the phone and we had a chat. Peter is kind of like a connection for a lot of my time back at Seven, even though we never directly work together. But you’ll see his name on a lot of shows. He’s a wonderful man who understands the industry, who’s a real class act, and he puts together a beautiful team. The crew were gorgeous,” she insists.
“I think the hardest working person on this show was the guy operating steady cam. I watched him during rehearsals, and particularly during the professional numbers. He worked so hard.
“But it’s a team effort like everything, the makeup and the wardrobe is part of magic of this show, and that’s, I guess, what was the most fulfilling part – just seeing it come together, like a musical. There was no one part that was bigger than the other.”
With the Logies on Seven just around the corner, could she be presenting?
“I’ll be heading up to the Logies, so that will be fun. There is some chat about that at the moment, so I might be going on stage.”
Surely she would be an ideal pick to hand out the coveted Gold Logie -has she ever presented it before?
“I’m not sure!” she laughs. “I know I hosted one year with four people. Georgie Parker, me, Bert and Ray Martin tagging through the show. I can’t even tell you what year it was, isn’t that terrible? It’s very long time ago!”
Meanwhile her next project is Sydney Theatre Company play Sweat later this year, and despite the punishing demands of Dancing with the Stars there’s no chance of taking it on the road.
“I kind of didn’t want it to stop. At the end, I thought, ‘What a shame we’re not going on tour. Like, how much fun would this be?’”
Dancing with the Stars concludes 7pm Sunday, 7:30pm Monday on Seven.
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