Strictly Come Dancing may be about to waltz back on to our screens but one of the show’s judges has spent the the last few months concentrating on his day job.

Craig Revel Horwood has been directing a revival of his 2006 production The Hot Mikado, a reworking of Gilbert and Sullivan’s famous opera, which heads to the Rose Theatre next week, and one of the show’s stars says the Simon Cowell of the dance floor is, in fact, a pleasure to work with.

Jeffrey Harmer, who plays the hapless executioner Ko-Ko in the show, explains: “Craig is not the personality you see on TV at all. He directs like a dancer in the fact that there is total discipline in rehearsals and we go over and over things.

“We are in the studio sweating for three hours and we get twenty minutes into lunch and then Craig says: ‘Right, let’s go from the beginning!’. He is very strict but also accepting of ideas – he’s great to work with, I’m not just saying that!”

The Hot Mikado was first performed in America in the 1940s, with the music updated to reflect the jazz and big band sound of the time.

This new version sees The Mikado undergo yet another transformation, taking the ancient Japanese world of the original and giving it a modern Manga twist, although Harmer insists it doesn’t stray to far from Gilbert and Sullivan’s vision.

“It’s very close to the original,” he says.

“It’s exactly the same narrative line but we’ve really made it wacky and added lots of great jokes – the music is fantastic.”

The songs of the show are mixture of Gilbert and Sullivan originals and new arrangements, with these re-workings done by Sarah Travis, who recently won a Tony award for her work on the Broadway transfer of Sweeney Todd.

“Sarah is a genius,” says Harmer. “We have some jazzy, big band tunes and she has arranged all of the music for actor-musicians. We all act, sing, play and dance at the same time. It’s quite difficult but you just have to do it.”

Harmer also relishes the opportunity the show gives him to inject a little topical comedy into the proceedings.

Ko-Ko famously performs a song in which he goes through his “little list” of people he is keen to execute and The Hot Mikado stays true to the tradition of giving this list something of an updating.

“We’ve included MPs with their duck houses and their moats and we’ve even got Susan Boyle in there,” he says. “The list is subject to change depending on the news – we’ve decided it will change as we travel around so that means I have to learn new lines every night.”

The Hot Mikado, Rose Theatre, Kingston, September 22-26, for more information and to book tickets to the show, visit rosetheatrekingston. org