He has swum alongside great whites and been bitten by a lemon shark, but wildlife expert Steve Backshall admits he was really thrown in the deep end when it came to Strictly Come Dancing.

“I expected it would be tough but didn’t take on board quite how much of a physical pounding you get from dancing ten hours a day. It just destroyed me,“ says the 41-year-old.

He broke his back in a rock climbing accident a few years ago and has a fused ankle and says he underestimated how hard trying to master the jive, waltz and salsa with partner Ola would be and admits you won’t find him on the dancefloor any time soon.

“One of the tricky things that people don’t really talk about before you get into Strictly is you don’t really learn how to dance. You learn set routines from extraordinarily capable and competent experts. But I can’t now walk into a salsa club or a tea dance and just join in because I don’t know the basic steps.“

He “collapsed“ into bed after going out of the competition in week nine and says: “It had more of an impact on me than some of my biggest major expeditions. It certainly gave me a good kicking.

“I’m not sure yet if it will benefit my career or go the other way, but it was fun,“ he adds.

The Marlow wildman will be at the Lyric Theatre this month for A Wild Audience With... when he will be talking about one of his favourite animals and hopes the “Strictly effect“ will attract new people to his shows.

“The event is in aid of Shark Trust, which is a charity very close to my heart, and I’ll be talking all about them, their biology and my many different encounters with sharks over the years from the very smallest, most harmless of sharks right up to diving in blue water outside the cage beside great white sharks.“

Brought up on smallholding in Surrey, Steve grew up surrounded by pets from rescue centres including an asthmatic donkey, and first swum with sharks aged just 11.

“It was always going to be a wildlife job for me, it was just a question of how,“ explains the Blue Peter badge holder.

“In the late ‘90s I was working as a writer and I came up with an idea for a series and went out to Columbia and I took a little video camera and filmed myself living in the jungle, catching snakes, scorpions and spiders and sold it to the National Geographics television channel and I have been doing it ever since.“

Despite all the attention the 41-year-old gets for his muscles, “it’s not bad for a git of my age to still be getting attention for my biceps“, he is still single and says he finds animals “way way more interesting“ than people.

Over the years he has grappled with countless deadly beasts and swum with dozens of varieties of sharks, learning when it is safe to go into the water, but last year he had a very close call.

“I was feeding sharks in the Bahamas as we were trying to film a shark bite. I miss-timed it and there was shark that came up behind me and I didn’t see it coming and it took not only the chunk of fish that I had in my hand but my whole hand as well and swam away with me in it’s mouth. I had a chainmail suit on underneath my wetsuit so it didn’t do me much damage, but it was certainly a lesson well learned.“

Despite this he has no fear of the animals and adds: “I honestly believe these are animals which pose a negligible threat to the health and safety of human beings.“ You may think that is the toughest situation a wildlife presenter can be in, but apparently not.

“It’s far more difficult as a presenter when you have to make a story when the animal isn’t around,“ says the Bafta-winner.

“With sharks you can bait the water and attract them to come to you from miles and miles away. That is not the case with big cats. You can’t and don’t entice them to come to you, you have to go out and find them with tracking and I have spent months and months searching for them and only finding tracks and droppings and that can be soul-destroying.“

The Deadly 60 presenter, who thinks Darcey Bussell is “extraordinarily hot“ is having a break from filming before Christmas, when he will be cooking for eight of his family at his home, and is working on his masters thesis on Salamanders and the fourth title in his Falcon Chronicle children’s book series entitle, fittingly, Shark Seas.

He says he believes “variety is the spice of life“.

“Yesterday I was filming the Strictly Christmas episode, now I’m on my way to the river to have a nice long kayak, this morning I filled up the feeders and watched the gold finches come in and tomorrow I’m going to Buckingham Palace for a concert. I spend my free time doing what I love.“

A Wild Audience With... is at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, W1, December 15, 7.30pm. Details: 0844 482 9674, awildaudiencewith.com