Strictly Come Dancing duo Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova are heading out on the road for their live headlining show together — Latin Fever.

The dancers are now household names thanks to their sequin-spangled Latin dance routines which have scorched a path across Saturday night television.

Latin Fever sees them team up with four top Latin dance pairs to take the audience on a breathtaking voyage from the streets of Brazil to the bullrings of Spain.

So what is it about Latin dance — from the fiery tango to the sensuous rumba and the fun salsa — that has so gripped the nation’s imaginations?

Darren says: “There is so much variety. There are so many kinds of Latin dance and you experience not just so many styles of dance but also the emotions and the stories.

“People are used to us doing ‘soundbite’ numbers that are two or three minutes long, but in the show the tango section is eight minutes.”

Lilia adds: “The music is very fiery. Some of it is more like a party, but they also see the relationship between a man and a woman that is built through the dancing.”

Darren says: “What we want to do is have a party on stage and we want to get people involved in that. We want them to leave with a big smile on their faces.”

The show has taken nine months to put together, followed by four weeks of gruelling dance rehearsals from 9am to 6pm.

“It was very full on, but it was fantastic,” says Lilia, who describes stepping out on stage as “the most amazing feeling in the world”.

And how does being a couple — they married in 2003 — affect the pair in the rehearsal room?

“It does mean Lilia doesn’t have to mince her words,” Darren quips.

Although they are champions in their own right, it is through the unexpectedly popular TV ballroom dance show Strictly Come Dancing that the pair have become national treasures.

Darren won the first series of Strictly — and the first Christmas special — partnering the actress Jill Halfpenny, but the following year it was Lilia lifting the trophy, after turning cricketer Darren Gough from ham-fisted sportsman into unlikely ballroom hero.

But both admit that Strictly’s success came as a huge surprise.

Lilia says: “I don’t think anyone could have known how big it would turn out to be.

“I think they thought it would just be this silly show with dancers dragging the celebrities round the floor, but it turned out to be a great professional show.”

Darren adds: “It’s paved the way for a lot of other dance shows. I don’t think anyone could have envisaged that dance would have the place in popular culture that it does now.”

* Latin Fever is at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, on Saturday, June 19. Tickets cost £23.50 to £39.50. To book, visit bridgewater-hall.co.uk or ring 0161 907 9000.