Dancing On The Edge

High-society scandal, murder mystery, Freemasons, Nazis and Russian émigré nudity (Janet Montgomery) – with only two hours left, Dancing on the Edge is certainly hotting up after a languorous three and a half mule-drawn hours... As the tensions mount, the characters have likewise revealed new or previously half suggested facets to their character. And we begin to see the group dynamic in a different and unsettling light. Sarah's response to Louis' account of his escape from Donaldson's house of horrors was especially disturbing and revealing, automatically she had all the answers ready for him, the lawyer was held up, the door was locked to prevent the children from disturbing him, the police arrived by coincidence. There is no indication that Donaldson explained any of this to her or that she was part of an overt conspiracy but her desire to maintain the illusion of the happy band of friends, and the niceties of high society (all of it lovingly preserved via her suffocatingly kitsch photographs) trump any love for or loyalty to Louis. It is similar to the rejection of Anne Keyes by her family in Glorious 39 yet handled in an infinitely subtler way. We recall Sarah's casual 'people are strange' defence of Masterson's abuse of his girlfriend in the first episode. Perhaps as the daughter of a wealthy Russian- a 'White émigré'?- her attachment to Anglo-American civilization with its aristocratic veneer and bourgeois capitalist underpinnings is too consuming to admit to flaws- shades of Ayn Rand!

Donaldson's grating avuncular hauteur has also given way to a far more sinister yet fascinating aspect to him, he is the great Establishment fixer, the Mycroft Holmes of social relations, able to play Master of Ceremonies and act at ease with everyone but when push comes to shove his master's servant to the end, he can invite you to the inner circle- even make you feel he is an outsider like you to allay anxieties but refuse to play the game and he will destroy you. And Julian is revealing himself as a splendidly English psychopath, a Bertie Wooster of sadistic menace- actually the light jazz in Dancing on the Edge is similar to that featured in the Fry & Laurie take on Jeeves and Wooster- this is the dark side of Brinkley Court and the Drones Club. While Pamela combines the psychotic dedication of Florence Craye ('Lady Caligula') with the eye rolling skittishness of Madeline Bassett, she and Julian are like Cocteau's Enfants Terribles, living in a fantasy world laced with dangerous and incestuous undercurrents. They are trying to escape from the clutches of their ghastly mater (rather than mother) but sliding further into their baroque make believe world at the same time. Of course, sibling incest as a comment on the decadence of rampant capitalism is a Poliakoff trope we have seen before (in Close My Eyes).


Masterton, the grand Gothic villain, is pure wealth, a De Sadean capitalist who turns everything into a form of consumption, jazz, musical journalism, railway journeys, even his propensity for violence- 'Dear me sir you've smashed up our hotel suite'. 'Let me buy it from you and we'll say no more about it', he smiles while mugging at the camera with his tycoon cigar. The thought of him using such innocents as Stanley and Eric (who is adorable, he is to musical technology what Dan Snow is to historical battlefields) as his pawns of cultural domination is frightening and hopefully they can break free in what has become a dramatisation of the creation an establishment - the establishment of an establishment (through the expanded media empire) is brilliant. See these players slot into their roles with such ease and excitement. Real power and real riches await. The grandness of the rooms represent the inner grandiosity that these hitherto seemingly good guys have always secretly craved. Rooms are expressions of inner grandness and motivation. Of course it's exaggerated, in order to make the point. A magazine is established, a new establishment is created. The incentive for everyone is just increased comfort and status - like any monkey kingdom.

There's something mournfully valedictory about Dancing on the Edge, on a number of different levels. It appears Poliakoff is aware this is likely his last hurrah as a big budget BBC filmmaker, and his sadness that the proud auteurist tradition which was the hallmark of British television for so long is set to be cast overboard in favour of so much slipshod, manically edited fodder for the short of attention, has bled its way into the drama. There was so much barely sublimated emotional distress threaded through tonight's episode, from Louis' near breakdown, to the creeping menace of the Masons and the deeply disturbing psychosexual traumas that bind Julian and Pamela. Poliakoff refuses to succumb to middlebrow mediocrity: he holds a mirror to our darkest fears with a ferocity and clarity of intent the modishly nihilistic serials of his successors wouldn't dare emulate.

Above all, Masterson's role is now clear; he represents the coming conquest of British and European culture by the products of American capitalism. His takeover of Music Express is supposed to be "quite boring", many revolutions start not with a bang, but with a whispered agreement and the careful exchange of freshly inked business contracts. Rosie, Poliakoff's canary in the mine, is the only one to foresee the suffocating banalisation that awaits Stanley, Eric et al. Alas, they have all been bought off; from the Establishment doyenne Lady Cremone to the rootless cosmopolitan, Sarah; Louis, the most socially vulnerable member of their circle, is thrown to the wolves in order to maintain social order. It is why the Band having to play or sing a song while trying to eat has been a constant theme. The black band members know their place is not equal amongst these "friends". They constantly have to pay their way and sing for their supper. You don't have to be Walter Benjamin to catch the subtextual inferences here.

Television Series: Dancing on the Edge (S01E04)
Release Date: February 2013
Actress: Janet Montgomery
Video Clip Credit: Drazerfta



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Dancing On The Edge S01E01

Joanna Vanderham, the doe-eyed ingénue of Stephen Poliakoff’s Dancing on the Edge, has risen rapidly through the ranks. Still only 22, she was plucked from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in her second year to be the heroine of Sky1’s 2011 drama The Runaway, which bagged her an International Emmy nomination. Vanderham then carried the bulk of the plot – not to mention yards of taffeta petticoats – on her slim frame as the star of The Paradise, which will return for a second series later this year. She now has a Hollywood film under her belt, the yet-to-be-released What Maisie Knew, alongside Julianne Moore, and now a pivotal role in writer/director Stephen Poliakoff’s long-awaited period drama, which began last night.

What makes Vanderham so bankable, notes the Telegraph's Vicki Power, is a subtlety in her acting that belies her years. This was particularly evident during a scene in The Runaway in which the camera focused only on Vanderham’s face as her character was raped – and fear, pain, anguish and disillusion all crossed it in moments. She has an expressive mouth and, tall and beautiful, has the flexibility to play both ingénue and minx, period and modern.

There’s also a certain flintiness to Vanderham, something which manifested itself when she refused to do a nude scene for Dancing on the Edge. Poliakoff’s five-part thriller about the mixed fortunes of a fictional black jazz band in Thirties London, which stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew Goode, sees Vanderham’s society girl Pamela Luscombe strike up a relationship with Goode’s Stanley Mitchell, a music journalist. Vanderham balked when the first episode’s script called for Pamela to enjoy a naked clinch with Goode. "I had to put my foot down and say, 'I refuse to be nude,'" says Vanderham. "It was difficult for me, because it’s Stephen Poliakoff and that’s how he’d written it and I love that character.


"But those images [of nudity] don’t go away. It was maybe my third large job and I thought, 'I’m not ready for that.'" Ultimately, Vanderham managed to convince Poliakoff that baring all might be counterproductive to how the character plays out. The drama as a whole is intriguing and gripping, and Vanderham gives a startling, standout performance as the mysterious Pamela, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, while her eyes – huge dark pools – give away nothing of her motivations.


Television Series: Dancing on the Edge (S01E01)
Release Date: February 2013
Actress: Jenna-Louise Coleman & Joanna Vanderham
Video Clip Credit: MVP



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