Craig Revel Horwood

Craig Revel Horwood
Revel Horwood at the 2008 Red Bull Flugtag
Born	4 January 1965 (1965-01-04) Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Occupation	Television personality, choreographer, dancer, theatre director
Years active	1999–present

Craig Revel Horwood (born 4 January 1965) is an Australian-British dancer, choreographer, and theatre director in the United Kingdom. He is a patron of the National Osteoporosis Society. Revel Horwood has substantial theatre credits in choreography and directing, but is perhaps best known as a judge on the television programme, Strictly Come Dancing. He published his autobiography in 2008.

Personal Life

Born in Ballarat, Australia in 1965,^{[citation needed]} Horwood started his career as a dancer in Melbourne, then moved to London to take advantage of the greater opportunities available there. In 1989 he moved to the UK from Australia, and on 20 August 2011 became a British citizen.

In his autobiography, Horwood (nicknamed Craig Revel Horrid) reveals that at the age of 17 he made money by appearing as a drag queen in bars and clubs, and that his relationship with an unnamed celebrity was akin to prostitution.

He has twice undergone plastic surgery. The first occasion was a "nose job" at the age of 18. In 2011, Revel Horwood revealed that he had undergone a breast reduction during 2010 because his "C"-size cups rendered dancing painful.

Horwood is openly bisexual, and is in a relationship with his partner, Grant.

Charity

Horwood has recently been made a patron of the National Osteoporosis Society,^{[citation needed]} because of his efforts in raising awareness of osteoporosis and bone health.

Theatre

West End and UK

Extensive West End credits include Spend Spend Spend and My One and Only, both of which garnered him Laurence Olivier Award nominations for Best Choreography. He was associate director/choreographer of West Side Story, assisted Bob Avian with Martin Guerre, and was resident director of Miss Saigon. He also choreographed Hard Times - The Musical, Calamity Jane, Tommy Cooper - Jus' Like That, and directed and choreographed Beautiful and Damned. He choreographed the play Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, starring Claire Bloom and Billy Zane at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

He directed the Welsh Première Concert Production of My Land's Shore for the Gate Theatre in Cardiff. During the summer of 2008, he directed a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Sunset Boulevard at the Watermill Theatre, which transferred to London's West End at the Comedy Theatre.

Revel Horwood directed and choreographed the 2010-2011 UK tour of Chess - a remake of the 1986 musical conceived and written by Tim Rice, with music by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (of Abba). The show has garnered reasonable reviews for its staging and lighting

In 2012, he is directing the UK Tour of Strictly Come Dancing for the second year running.

United States and international

Regional theatre choreography credits include Pal Joey, Arcadia, On the Razzle, and My One and Only at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Guys and Dolls in Sheffield, Anything Goes and South Pacific for Grange Park Opera, and Hot Mikado at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury.

International productions include Crazy for You (South Africa), Fiddler on the Roof and Sweet Charity (Amsterdam and Holland national tour), Chess (Denmark), Bonheur (Paris), Copacabana (Denmark, Der Kuhhandel (Austria), and Glanzlichter (Berlin).

Special Events

Revel Horwood directed the opening ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and staged Once Upon a Time - The Life of Hans Christian Andersen, a live concert in Copenhagen to mark the author's bicentenary that was televised worldwide.

Pantomime

In December 2009, Horwood played the part of The Queen in Snow White and the 7 Dwarves at Theatr Cymru in Llandudno, North Wales, a role he reprised in December 2010 at The Hawth in Crawley. and at the Orchard Theatre in Dartford, Kent, in 2011

Television

Strictly Come Dancing

Horwood is familiar to British television audiences as a member of the judging panel on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. He has a reputation for being the harshest of the Strictly Come Dancing judges and is often the recipient of booing from the studio audience. On top of all this, he attracted widespread criticism for his apparent bias towards Emma Bunton in the fourth series of the competition. He is known for stringently applying rules, as for example when marking down for an "illegal lift" in the Viennese Waltz if the lady's foot leaves the floor.

Unqualified praise, or a perfect 10 mark from Horwood, is considered hard won and therefore highly prized by contestants and audiences alike.

Catchphrases

In the context of his judging, Horwood has become widely known and imitated for his locutions which often include exaggeratedly lengthened vowels, including: "It was a dahnce di-SAH-ster, dahling."

His appreciative utterance of: "Three words: Fab - u - LOUS!" has achieved iconic status. (Clearly that is three syllables, not words, but Horwood delivers the syllables as three separate words.) Horwood similarly breaks up the syllables and throws the stress forward to the final syllable for "A-ma-ZING!".

Dancing with the Stars

He was a judge on Dancing with the Stars in New Zealand, along with Brendan Cole. It was quite frequent for the two men's opinions and scores to be markedly different.

Comic Relief Does Fame Academy

Horwood became a judge on Comic Relief Does Fame Academy in 2005, along with Lesley Garrett and Richard Park. He and Garrett replaced vocal coaches David Grant and Carrie Grant on the panel, however the pair still appeared as voice coaches on the show. He returned as a judge for the third series of the Comic Relief edition in 2007. The show was cancelled by the BBC after the third series had ended.

Other TV appearances

Horwood can be seen in Episode 5 of Series 2 of Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends during which Theroux investigates the trials and tribulations of struggling New York actors. He is introduced as Craig Horwood at an audition for a musical on a Norwegian cruise ship, for which he is the choreographer.

In May and June 2007 he appeared as a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef, reaching the final alongside Nadia Sawalha and Midge Ure.

On 15 April 2010, Horwood was the celebrity guest judge on Daily Cooks Challenge. On 13 August 2010 he appeared on Would I Lie to You?. During 2011, he guested on Celebrity Juice (Episode 6, series 5; 17 March) and on Ask Rhod Gilbert (28 September). In January 2012 Craig appeared on BBC TV series The Magicians

Publications

In 2008, Michael O'Mara books published Revel Horwood's autobiography, All Balls and Glitter: My Life.

External links

• Official Website
• Craig Revel Horwood at the Internet Movie Database
• Craig Revel Horwood talks about his production of Hot Mikado on The Interview Online