...success of BBC competition winner and sudden boom in people wanting to emulate him School that put dancer on the road to TV fame. Darren Bennett was seven years old when he started learning to dance and even at such a young age he realised he wanted to dedicate his life to it.Hours of hard work paid off on Saturday when he was crowned champion of BBC1's hit Strictly Come Dancing with EastEnder star Jill Halfpenny after wowing the judges week after week.

Even his family's Sheffield dance school, where he perfected his first few steps, has been propelled to stardom by his win as people rushed to sign up to its classes yesterday.

It seems Darren's gold-starred performance with Ms Halfpenny, in which they earned a perfect score of 40, has captured the imaginations of budding dancers across Sheffield.

With classes due to start in January filling up fast, the school has decided it needs to expand and find extra teaching premises across the city for the New Year.

"The phone's been ringing off the hook all morning," said his father Tony Bennett, who runs the City Limits Dancentre, in Walkley with his wife and Darren's mother Judith. "We've always been busy, but Darren's success on Strictly Come Dancing has been great advertising for us.

"We're definitely going to put on more classes to cope with this surge in demand. Right now we're looking into other venues in Sheffield to hold them as our school's building isn't big enough.
"It's very exciting. I think people have realised from watching Strictly Come Dancing that beginners can learn to dance as couples and that it's a fun and sociable way of getting fit."

City Limits currently teaches around 650 people from aged three upwards to move their feet with style. They cover everything from ballroom dancing to rock 'n' roll to mambo and also run after-school clubs and PE lessons.

Framed photographs and cuttings charting the success of Darren and his wife, Lilia Kopylova, who partnered Aled Jones on Strictly Come Dancing, cover the school's corridors, providing inspiration to the pupils.

Unsurprisingly, many of them have formed a dedicated Darren fan club, which met up on Saturday night to watch the television final together.

"Darren gets sacks of fan mail from all over," said his father. "But the young girls at the school have a particular soft spot for him. His wife thinks it's pretty funny how they swoon over him."

But Mr Bennett said his son has kept his head firmly screwed on, despite all the attention.
"Darren knows what he wants and he's very focused," he said. "He's one of the top dancers in the world."

He turned professional two years ago after reigning as Britain's amateur champion for four years from 1998 to 2002. In September this year he came sixth in the Latin American Dance World Championships in Miami and will embark on a four-week tour of the Far East in January.
Before he sets off, however, he will be on British television screens more than once over Christmas.

Tomorrow he will take part in the Royal Variety Performance, shown on BBC1 from 8pm, and on December 22 he will be appearing in a Christmas special of Strictly Come Dancing.

However, fans will be anticipating Christmas Day the most, when he will appear in a BBC dance special after the Queen's Speech.

"I can't reveal who his partner is," Mr Bennett teased. "But it's going to be a fantastic show. We've watched how hard Darren's worked since he was young. We're very proud. He trained harder than anyone for Strictly Come Dancing, putting in over 250 hours. It's an amazing experience for any parent to watch their child succeed on television."

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