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Thanks for the memories!

Awesome Movie

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Blistering performances.

There are so many things to say that is wonderful about the first few episodes of Dancing on the Edge. The visuals were great, the music catchy, the characters interesting. I couldn't wait to see the next episode. There was so much intrigue and suspense.Then on the 4th episode it seems that the writers were told that this wasn't going to be an ongoing project and to wrap it up in a few episodes as possible. It was at this time that the show lost all suspense and interest. There were so many ways they could have developed this program, but just took short cuts and then wham the final episode was just the worst possible of all 6, (5 including the interview episode).They could have developed more on the lives of the two rich protagonist. They could have delved more into why Julian was the way he was. They could have told us more about Sarah and her father...or even the basic relationship between Louie and Sarah. It would have been nice to know more about Jessie, but it was not to be...she was far more tragic than her role portrayed.I could go on....but I won't. Watch it for the 1st three episode then bail. If you want all six, you will wish you had those hours lost on viewing it back.Seriously disappointing.

While this makes every effort to appear genuine to the period, it is a superficial experience. The realization comes in the third episode when Lady Cremone (Bisset) says of a party that it will be "fun". Anyone who has read Mitford or Waugh, and Gibbons in "Cold Comfort Farm", knows that 'fun' was a banished adjective among people of that class in that period. It's something that the writer ought to know. And while the set design and costumes and overall production is glossy it's like a fashion shoot. That fact comes out in the lack of story and drama - nothing much happens and very slowly for a long time. It has a contrived and much smaller stamp to it. Certainly, it does not justify its time or structure. It might have been done much better in half the time.The music which ought to be central is not and seems of a decade later; in arrangement, style and solo voicing, unconnected to the early 1930s, false when matched against recordings of that time.As to the characters. They are standard TV fare, but only half-formed. They say things as ciphers in some mimicry of what real characters might have said in that period.

Cannot understand the current rating of this outstanding drama. The story, set over a few weeks in 1933, follows a talented black leader of a jazz band as he tries to get his band established in the London club and hotel scene. He soon finds he is meeting with royalty but that something dark is also going on.Dancing on the Edge explores the slimy corruption of real evil as royalty, masonry, bigotry and sensuality all combine to provide a very particular view of the upper reaches of British Society.The production values are excellent, and the 1930's are recreated in remarkable detail. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Chiwetell Ejiofor providing a compelling performance of a man caught up in circumstances spinning beyond his control.Highly recommended as BBC drama at its best.

This whole enterprise is so embarrassingly awful it is difficult to know where to begin. Is this play supposed to be a fantasy or some expression of reality? Jazz bands of whatever colour did not play in the dining rooms of expensive London hotels in the 1930s. Dance bands which may have contained the odd jazz man was the norm. The band in the play did not play anything remotely recognisable as jazz. Did band leaders stroll around London dressed like Fred Astaire in a Hollywood musical complete with opera cloak; I don't think so.This 'hugely popular' band seemed to spend its time playing to an audience of about twelve middle-aged diners.The cast of assorted weirdos and high society drop-outs was totally unconvincing. Where did the black band-leader acquire his impeccable accent; did he go to Eton perhaps? The play has simplistic plot lines and we know that the whole enterprise is going to end in tears. OK, we already knew that the assorted Windsor males were a set of privileged moronic uneducated fools and that sections of the upper classes would have gone along with fascism at the drop of a cocktail; but we could do with a rather more nuanced and sophisticated explanation than we are getting. I am only continuing to watch to see whether it will get any more awful.The author appears to be the BBC's equivalent of the Emperor who is forever indulged with his fantasies. Perhaps I can be the small boy who points out that it is all expensive self indulgent rubbish.