It’s a scene redolent of a kind of glamour that belongs firmly in the past: a vast, high ballroom, fully 100ft long, with ornate plasterwork, massive Corinthian pillars and rows of lovely Art Deco light fittings. You’d feel the need to dress up to the nines merely to justify your presence in such a room, and everyone has done just that – the men in black tie, the women in drop-dead couture creations that cling to their bodies. Seats and tables are concentrated at the back of the room, leaving floor space for dancing; at the other end is a stage with a striking Deco-styled backdrop in muted colours. An 11-piece band of black jazz musicians, fronted by two female singers, belts out a driving, infectious swing tune called Dead of Night Express. It looks and sounds like a glimpse of the 1930s – which is exactly the point, writes the Telegraph's David Gritten.
This is a key moment in Dancing on the Edge, a wildly ambitious six-hour BBC drama set in 1930s Britain. Written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff, it surveys the nation through two years (1931-33) of this eventful decade through an unusual prism – the experiences of a fictional jazz band, led by the pianist Louis Lester (Chiwetel Ejiofor). They become fashionable enough to play chic hotels and clubs for a high-society crowd, but because of their race must enter and exit venues by the back door. "That really happened in London back then," Poliakoff says, reeling off the names of famed black musicians such as Leslie 'Hutch’ Hutchinson, Ken 'Snakehips’ Johnson and Leslie Thompson. "When I was researching [the TV drama] The Lost Prince 10 years ago, I learnt that Prince George, the future Duke of Kent, grew up to be this playboy prince, and knocked around London with his brother the Prince of Wales, who became Edward VIII. They visited jazz clubs, got close to some jazz musicians. I found that fascinating. The idea of looking at the 1930s not through the eyes of the princes but those of the black jazz band just stayed with me until I had to attempt it."
Yet while music plays a major role in Dancing on the Edge, it is only one part of a larger story. Like many of Poliakoff’s dramas, it pulls together several themes, many of them relevant to Britain today: economic depression, immigration and a public obsession with celebrity ("even bigger than it is now," he laughs). The story encompasses the early days of magazines, radio and photojournalism, and the attitudes and social conditions that eventually led to the appeasement of Adolf Hitler. "[The early 1930s are] a great period for Stephen to have chosen," Ejiofor says. "It’s not completely dominated by being post-war or pre-war. It’s interesting in its own way. It feels very modern. It definitely resembles our own times."
John Goodman plays Masterson, a fabulously wealthy American in London with shrewd ideas for business ventures, while Jacqueline Bisset is Lady Cremone, a jazz-loving aristocrat presiding over a stately home, who still grieves the loss of two sons in the Great War. Matthew Goode represents a new spirit of the times as Stanley, a cheerful cockney music journalist with an eye for the main chance; on a hunch that Louis Lester’s band could be a success, he writes a rave review about them for the fledgling Music Express (loosely based on the early Melody Maker) without having heard them play, then sets out to drop their name in influential places.
The idea for Dancing on the Edge goes back to the winter of 2007, when Poliakoff first mentioned it to the BBC. "At that point, the financial crash hadn’t happened," he says. "But then it kept on getting more and more pertinent. Now routinely every financial programme on TV has an archive reference from the 1930s. More importantly, this was a time when not everybody was racist or anti-semitic. We’ve got used to the idea that there was so much anti-semitism in the 30s, especially among the ruling elite, that it was routine. Yet this was a pocket of time when things could have gone another way. It was possible for people to be optimistic. There had been a financial crash, but there was a feeling that the catastrophe of complete financial meltdown had been averted. Most people didn’t want to go through a world war again. Instead, there was an embracing of everything new; people were obsessed with new music. There was a sense of wanting to leave that oppressive Edwardian world behind."
Shimmying in a sparkly black and silver dress, Angel Coulby brings Dead of Night Express to a halt. For a second there is silence in the ballroom. And then, from the front row of tables, one man begins clapping. Significantly, that man is the Prince of Wales (Sam Troughton), who, with his brother George (John Hopkins) and their entourage, has dropped by the fictional Imperial Hotel, a once grand establishment in genteel decline, to see the Louis Lester band on only their second public gig. The royal siblings are having a night on the town, and are as likely to leave quickly as stay. But the Prince applauds, and the rest of the audience feels free to join in. Ejiofor, suave and elegant in a tuxedo, rises from his piano and strides confidently to the microphone. "We’ve left the station now, haven’t we?" he tells the audience in a cultured voice. "We’ve left it right behind. But now we’ve got to get to dancing – because that’s why we’re here." And he introduces another swing number, Dancing on the Moon – one of several original songs written for the series by the composer Adrian Johnston, a long-time collaborator of Poliakoff’s. The soundtrack has been confirmed for release on 28 January on Decca records.
As it begins, Pamela (Vanderham), seated beside the Prince, catches his eye and raises an eyebrow. He whisks her to the empty dance floor – once again, the cue for the rest of the room to follow suit. The Louis Lester band are on their way. On the sidelines Goode, as Stanley, carefully watches the royal brothers’ unwitting endorsement of the band – a big break for them he has indirectly engineered. Poliakoff, 60, a slightly dishevelled man with the air of a distracted academic, sits at a monitor, viewing proceedings. He taps one foot gently but insistently. He seems on edge; between takes he prowls the ballroom, holding a drinking straw in one hand, compulsively twiddling it. "It’s a genetic thing," he tells Gritten later. "My family has an overactive gene. We all twiddle with something."
The scene is completed in a few takes. Cast, crew and extras relax, and the fantasy of being in a grand 1930s London hotel ballroom on a mild evening recedes. In truth, it is freezing cold; the female cast and members dive for fleeces and winter coats to cover their skimpy dresses. Within 60 seconds, the set looks like a commercial for The North Face. And we’re not even in London, but Birmingham, in the old Grand Hotel, a Grade II listed Victorian building opposite the cathedral, now undergoing renovation. It closed in 2002 and is encased in scaffolding before it reopens next year. But its glorious Grosvenor Room remains intact, an ideal double for the Imperial’s ballroom. The production designer Grant Montgomery excitedly points out its details. "It feels like a treasure we stumbled on," he says. "It’s absolutely perfect for this scene. And can you imagine how much it would cost to create all this from scratch?"
Unlike many multi-part television dramas, such as Downton Abbey, Poliakoff has directed every episode, a factor that helped to keep costs down. "It’s scheduled like a film," he says. "For instance, we’ve shot everything in the ballroom in one go, even though it was spread over five episodes. So we didn’t have to go back each time and re-dress the set. If you’ve got different directors you can’t do that." Poliakoff, his producer Nicky Kentish Barnes and locations manager Harriet Lawrence were also canny in deciding where to shoot: the Council House, Birmingham’s municipal headquarters, only 200 yards away from the Grand Hotel, was used for the Imperial’s imposing lobby. "You find ways of stitching together a world," Poliakoff says. And several other backdrops were shot in the West Midlands: Ragley Hall in Warwickshire became Lady Cremone’s pile, the working-class village nearby was shot at the Black Country Living Museum near Dudley, and the Severn Valley Railway’s heritage line was just the ticket for scenes involving trains.
Still, although Dancing on the Edge looks ravishing, it wasn’t achieved by throwing lots of money at it. The costume designer Lindsay Pugh admits the clothes worn by the vast majority of the cast were "found or sourced, fitted and made to work" rather than designed. "We found some lovely 1930s pieces in little shops in strange places," she says. One exception was John Goodman, partly as a nod to his star status and because his character, Masterson, needed to look utterly elegant. "John first flew in from America on a Friday evening, we did a costume fitting, and he did his first scene at 8am Sunday morning," Pugh reports. "That was stressful – as much for the tailor as for me."
Chiwetel Ejiofor’s career as a leading man stretches back more than a decade, but he regards Dancing on the Edge as the most ambitious story he has been involved in, and Louis Lester among the richest characters he has played. "As soon as I read the scripts, I was completely hooked," he recalls. "I was aware from the beginning that Stephen was on to something pretty special. It was such a unique story. I didn’t know much about 30s jazz bands in the UK, but it all felt very contemporary to me. And the music is so exhilarating." Lester has a back story, having served in the Merchant Navy after the First World War. Ejiofor did research on the Merchant Navy, and concluded it was a hard, disciplined life. "What with that experience and being a band leader, Louis developed a strong sense of himself," he says.
Ejiofor has played a pianist on screen before, in Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda. "I played a little when I was a kid, then stopped," he says, laughing. "But I’m comfortable around a piano. I know my way around it a little bit." Still, the best part for him was working with Poliakoff. "I was familiar with his work, but I was struck how charming he is," he says. "I hadn’t expected him to be quite so funny. I found him very easy." Ejiofor was surprised by Poliakoff’s insistence that the cast should rehearse for three weeks, rather than the usual few days. "I didn’t know if we’d feel over-rehearsed, but Stephen was right. It was vital for us all to get into that world."
Poliakoff returns the compliment. "Chiwetel’s a wonderful colleague. He’s very bright, and one of the few actors I’ve ever worked with who’s not just interested in his own character. I really felt here was someone who cared as much about the whole piece as I did. It was like having another producer there." Maybe he was also glad for the moral support; Dancing on the Edge is as risky a venture as its title implies. Nicky Kentish Barnes recalls, "When Stephen first went to the BBC, he warned them, 'This won’t be what I usually write. It’s a much bigger story.'" Poliakoff concurs. "This is quite a leap for me. These aren’t just characters from an upper-middle-class background like myself. There’s a whole array of them, in a different world from anything I’ve ever done. I’m proud of what we have achieved." He laughs quietly and nervously. "Now I just hope people like it."
US cable network Starz certainly believe they will. The broadcaster, which split from parent Liberty Media last week to launch an IPO, is expected to close a deal imminently for the Ruby Films-produced series. US firm Endgame Entertainment part-financed the 1930s-era series in the hope of achieving a US sale, thought to the first time that model has been applied to a UK series. Separately, ITV Studios Global Entertainment, which holds international rights outside of the UK and US, has closed a number of deals for the six-part drama, which is Poliakoff’s first full length TV series. International broadcasters including Australia’s UKTV, Israel’s Hot and Finland’s YLE have all already acquired the show.
In a further break with convention, the lead characters will also feature in a bonus episode of two-hander interviews that will air after the series ends. The episode, dubbed 'Seventh Hour', will centre on a series of interviews between Stanley, the editor of Music Express magazine, and members of the Louis Lester Band. Goode and Ejiofor reprised their roles for the one-hour episode; the interviews are set at the same time as the main action but occur off-screen as wider events unfold. Developed by Poliakoff early into production, Seventh Hour was designed to add more depth to key relationships in the series without sacrificing the pace of the multi-layered narrative, which features a large cast of characters.
During the episode, band leader Louis reflects on what it is like to be a black musician in 1930s London, his father’s role in World War 1, the band’s exotic attraction to the aristocracy and a sinister encounter with a female fan, while band members Carla (Mosaku) and Jessie (Coulby) open up about their upbringings and feelings about being famous. The interviews are intercut with footage of the band playing, with Stanley giving his own views in voiceover. "The idea is that these are the interviews that you never saw because of the circumstances of the plot," says a spokesman for producer Ruby Film & Television. "It’s an opportunity for Stephen to open up the environment of the 1930s and to make it more personalised than the rattling plot can allow."
Dancing on the Edge (BBC2) starts on February 4
Seventh Hour is expected to air at 9pm on BBC2 in early March after the main five-part series ends.
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