BAFTA winner Chris McCausland was a guest on Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh on Sunday
Strictly Come Dancing champ Chris McCausland got candid about his experience of vision loss and the role of humour in navigating “embarrassing situations”. The 47-year-old comedian sat down for a cosy tea-time conversation with Alan Titchmarsh on the recent edition of Love Your Weekend, aired on 18th May.
Struck by retinitis pigmentosa, a hereditary condition, Chris lost his sight entirely by his early twenties. Nevertheless, he’s made a mark in the entertainment industry, clinching Strictly’s glitterball trophy last year with dance ace Dianne Buswell.
Chris has tickled the nation on popular programmes such as Would I Lie To You, Have I Got News For You, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and QI, demonstrating his comedic chops. His versatile talents have also seen him acting in television shows including Not Going Out, Me Too!, Moving On, EastEnders, and Bad Tidings.
Reflecting on his journey with visual impairment, BAFTA awardee Chris recounted to Alan Titchmarsh: “My eyesight deteriorated from around maybe 25 years ago, you get used to it but you get used to the deterioration, there’s never a point you can get used to it, this is what life is now”, reports Edinburgh Live.
He dove into the subtle progression of the condition, mentioning, “It’s the things that you don’t notice happening at the time, but the things that you can do one year ago that you maybe can’t do in two years’ time.”
Highlighting a pivotal age in his life, he added: “Especially when I got to kind of 18 to 25, that’s when you know, all those years before, and still able to do everything you have always been able to do, but maybe want to strike a bit harder.”
Discuss their challenges and adaptations, “But when you get to 18 to 25 that’s when you stop being about to do things, like see in the dark.”
He later commented: “You just get used to it, and it’s a mad thing to say but you wouldn’t think that when it’s happening, ‘oh I wish I was blind now’ because you want the sight that you have got. But when you get there, you know, it all starts working out.”
Chris is currently thrilling fans with his stand-up show Yonks! on a UK tour, receiving rave reviews.
Alan, 76, inquired if Chris sees comedy as a sort of “weapon” in coping with his blindness, prompting Chris to acknowledge that he employs humour to extricate himself from awkward situations.
“It’s a way of putting people at ease. It’s a way of telling you’re at ease,” said Chris during the discussion.
“It’s a way of dealing with embarrassment because you get yourself into all kinds of embarrassing situations, especially when you’re pretending that you can see more than you can, because you don’t want to accept that you are blind.
“You pretend you can see, not don’t want the label of that, especially when you are 23/24, you want to be cool, you don’t want to have that label.
“You try to struggle through the whole thing that people don’t notice that you are, but you’re unable to see as much as you are.
“So you get yourself into all kinds of situations and humour tends to get you out of them, so you do use it a lot.”
Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh airs Sundays at 9:30am on ITV1 and ITVX.
