Strictly Come Dancing star Nikita Kuzmin can’t wait to come back to the city he called home last year. The professional dancer stayed in Merseyside for four months while he trained Olympic gold medal winner Sam Quek on the 2024 season of the BBC show.
The 27-year-old is heading back to the region next week when his new tour show, Midnight Dancer, arrives at the Liverpool Empire on April 30. The dancer spoke to the ECHO in an exclusive interview ahead of the performance about why he’s so excited to return to the region.
He said: “Liverpool will forever be in my heart and I had such a good time living there. I cannot wait. I literally feel like I’m going to have a party with the whole Liverpool crowd and that’s actually the aim of the whole show.”
He added: “The show in itself is quite dramatic. It does have a sort of Cinderella storyline. It’s a story of love, of betrayal, hope and pain. But we break it up with a lot of banter, laughter and really impressive dancing.
“It’s a good night out. My highlight of the whole tour is just seeing people smiling, dancing and singing the night away together. Having this feeling of love in the crowd is the most beautiful feeling.”
Nikita felt lucky to have been able to spend so much time in Liverpool last year, while he was training Sam, who lives in Wirral. The dancer’s visit this time will only be brief before the tour moves on to the next stop in Plymouth, but he’s determined to fit in a visit to some of his favourite spots.
He added: “I will try to go to Joey’s Café [on Hardman Street] again. That salad was so good. Just to go and say hi to the people that I met there. I also passed museums by the river that I never went in so I would love to do that.”
Nikita particularly loved being able to take in the sights of Liverpool during evening runs in the city, but said the most special part of his stay in Merseyside was watching Sam bloom into an incredible dancer. He added: “People do Strictly just once in a lifetime.
“For me, the highlight is to bring the most amount of fun out of this partnership and just make the celebs enjoy their time because those are precious moments.
“Without having fun in the room and enjoying spending time together, it’s really long. But once you start to enjoy the process, enjoy learning and enjoy teaching, then everything else flourishes automatically.”
The partnership with Sam was Nikita’s third in a row with a celebrity from the North of England. Each pairing has left its mark as Nikita explained he has picked up certain aspects of the Northern dialect.
The dancer, who was born in Ukraine and later raised in Italy, said: “I sometimes say ‘me mum’, ‘me dad’, ‘me nan’. Sometimes it comes out, sometimes it does not. I can’t control it and I don’t want to control it. Where I’ve lived my whole life, it’s part of me.”
While he has absorbed certain aspects of the Liverpool accent, Nikita laughed mastering Scouse slang was a step too far. He said: “I’m not going to lie, Scouse slang is way too hard for my brain.
“The most impressive thing for me was at the end of my time living in Liverpool, I started to understand the slang. I still do not know how to repeat it. But the fact I could understand it, no matter how thick the slang or the accent is, I felt like a true Liverpudlian.”
Nikita’s last time in Liverpool came as part of the Strictly Come Dancing tour, which arrived at the M&S Bank Arena in January. The dancer stepped in for his injured co-star, Vito Coppola, to perform alongside Sarah Hadland and the two were crowned winners on the second night in the waterfront arena.
He said: “Sam was there [in the crowd], which felt quite funny. Sometimes I think about those things, but then once you get on the dancefloor, you just like to smash it.” Nikita joined Strictly in 2021 and his infectious personality has meant he has become one of the most popular members of the cast.
However, he represents more than just a dancer as he also uses his platform to speak about his Type 1 diabetes diagnosis and show what is possible for people who live with the condition. He said: “I never try to be an inspiration, I just try to show to people, especially the kids that you are absolutely OK.
“You just need to take insulin and, if you learn how to take care of that, you will learn how to take care of many other things in your life. That’s why it is your superpower. It just gives you that consciousness and responsibility.”
The dancer has been confirmed as part of the line-up for the 2025 season of Strictly and he can’t wait to see who he is paired up with this time around. He said: “I’m so, so excited. It’s the best show on telly and I cannot wait to come back. People always think we know in advance what is going to happen or who our partners are going to be, but that’s not the case.
“The reaction you see on the telly is the real reaction and it’s a very exciting thing. It’s a humungous part of my life and it’s very exciting when you don’t know how the new thing is going to pan out, but you just roll with it and get the best out of it.”
Nikita revealed the preparations for Strictly 2025 will start in July when the next chapter of his incredible career in performing will take shape. Before then, he is looking forward to enjoying a break with his family and girlfriend, Lauren Jaine, after the Midnight Dancer tour ends on May 24.
He said: “I never give myself personally any time. So [after the tour] I’m trying to pause with everything I have going on and live my life. Give more time to my loved ones, and my girlfriend. Just living my life as a normal human being. Everything else is extremely chaotic and sometimes I miss a bit of normality.”