WATCH: Strictly Professionals head to Portsmouth and Brighton

This is her third Professionals tour – and she reckons it is the best. Not that she is criticising the first two. It’s just that this one, she feels, has got the edge. The show features a ten-strong ensemble of dancers from the hit BBC One TV show. Tickets are on sale from StrictlyTheProfessionals.com. Shows include include May 26 at Portsmouth Guildhall and May 27 and 28 at the Brighton Centre.

As Dianne says: “It's just the professionals which is lovely. The TV show is great when we're working with the celebrities but this is our chance to do all sorts of things that we've never done before.

"With the TV show it's all about helping the celebrities do their best but this is much more about us doing what we do. This is my third tour and I would definitely put this one in top place. The first two have been great but this one is just really, really good. It is just so full of emotion and feeling – an absolute emotional rollercoaster. We are making people laugh and cry and all the emotions in between. You can see that there is every emotion and you can really see the joy.

"When we do this show it's very much about us. It is not just about helping other people do their very best. This gives us a chance to do what we really want to do and to show it to people, but I absolutely love the TV show and I'm literally counting down the weeks until we can start on that. I just love it.

“I started on the TV show in 2017 and this is coming into my seventh year and it's just always insane and crazy, but it just comes around so fast. But I do still feel like I am a newbie and I just feel the complete magic of the show. I just get so excited about every single year and when it happens I just never want it to end. It's only from September to December but it's just magical and it goes past so quickly. The joy is that you are teaching people new skills and everyone absolutely loves it.”

Dianne believes that everyone can become a better dancer: “Some people are maybe not born natural dancers but I do believe that everyone can get better, and the lovely thing for the audiences is that it's a show that really is for all ages. It's something that the whole family can watch on a Saturday night. The grandmother can sit down with the grandchildren and the generation in between and you can all enjoy it and it's just such a feel-good show. The lovely thing is that you can feel the celebrities gaining confidence as they learn. It's such a joyful thing and it just feels so real. It's reality television but it is definitely real. There's nothing false about it. What you see on the screen is exactly what it's like and I think that's the beauty of it.”

Joining Dianne on the bill are Vito Coppola; Chinese National Dance Champion and 2022 finalist Carlos Gu; Karen Hauer; Neil Jones; Nikita Kuzmin; three-time Strictly finalist including 2022 Gorka Marquez; four-time Italian Dance Championship winner Luba Mushtuk; 2022 Strictly winner Jowita Przystal; and Nancy Xu.