All language subtitles for BBC Dancing Cheek to Cheek 2of3 Revolution on the Dance Floor.srt - eng(2)

In this series, Lucy and I
are joining forces

to uncover the British love affair
with dancing.

I'll be putting her through her
paces on the dance floor

and she'll be giving me a history
lesson.

Lucy, chop, chop.

A little bit quicker, please. Time
for lunch.

From the 17th to the 20th century,

we'll discover how much our favourite
dances

tell us about the nation's social
history.

From money and morals to sex
and snobbery,

you can find it all on the British
dance floor.

Twerking, nothing new.

Yeah. It's from the charleston.
Yeah.

HE LAUGHS

We'll visit fancy ballrooms to see
how the other half danced,

and factory floors to find out what
the rest of us got up to.

Moira, I think Len's wiggling his
hips.

We'll dress to dance in perfect
period style...

I'm a bit of eye candy for a lot of
the ladies.

..from the tips of our toes to the
tops of our wigs.

And each episode, we'll experience

the era's most iconic dances for
ourselves...

And then back to your partner. When
are we ever going to get together
and link arms?

The next, the next bit, but we've
got to get the tension between you
here.

..as we learn them for a grand
finale,

where we'll be dancing...cheek to
cheek.

In the 19th century,

slow and stately court dances fell
out of favour.

In their place, some humble peasant
dances

captured the hearts of the
Victorians.

These were faster, they were freer
and they were a lot more fun.

But speed and scandal
went hand in hand,

and as dancing became more
democratic,

it also got more debauched.

As the dances speeded up,

couples went from dancing at arm's
length

to being locked in each other's arms
in a close embrace.

For the up-tight Victorians,

this was nothing short of a
revolution on the dance floor.

This is the last place on earth
you'd expect to find dancing!

19th-century Britain was defined by
the Industrial Revolution.

Manufacturing changed for ever as
machines created

a mechanised and monotonous
workplace for the labouring classes.

Noisy machines, hard graft,
12-hour shifts...

It doesn't sound like there'd be

much time, space or energy left for
dancing.

But dancing was still Victorian
Britain's favourite entertainment,

and for a new breed of factory
workers,

the urge to dance was as strong as
ever.

There was no health and safety in
those days,

the only protection they had were
the clogs on their feet.

In places like this, Queen
Street Mill in Burnley,

the workers danced in them to
relieve their boredom.

Why did they clog dance in a place
like this?

When the Industrial Revolution
occurred

at the end of the 18th century,

people were very concerned about
people becoming automatons,

being absolutely subsumed by the
machinery.

And whereas before you'd have the
artisan worker,

who sat at his loom and could take
breaks, had his family around him,

it suddenly became this very
alienating,

very...inhuman type of production.

I can imagine that there was one
girl

who was making a bit of a
clinky-clanky noise

and she talked to her friend and
said, "Let's do it together."

And...and so it grew into what it
is.

And that's exactly how clog
dancing progresses,

it's one person showing a step,

another one saying, "Oh, I can do
that a bit better."

Or, "What about adding this bit?"
Yeah. And it's always developing.

MACHINERY CHURNS RHYTHMICALLY

The machines were the music.

When you listen to the machines,
they've each got their own rhythm.

The steps are actually called after
the components of the machinery.

So we get "the cog".

We've got steps that look like the
shuttle

shooting backwards and forwards.

Two up, two down,

which is the movements of the bobbins
going across

or the shafts going like this.

If you look at the governor, that's
what controls the whole engine,

it's really the heart of the mill,
and you get that spinning round

in one of the other steps, the twist
steps.

Step, twist, that's it.

Just a lot of those.

Perfect! Ooh!

Ooh! Sort of.

Love it! I love... I love how
they've taken these sounds,

these natural sounds and...and made
dance out of it.

Oh. I don't like the arms,
I only like the feet.

All right, let's start like that.
I'm going to link arms. Go.

Ooh!

Twist it! Oh-ho!

I'm doing it, sort of!

'Clog dancing became one of the
first dances

'borne out of the daily lives of the
working classes.

'I suppose it was the Victorian
version of street dancing.'

Whoo-whoo!
HE LAUGHS

What a team!

While working-class people drew their
dance influences from the factory
floor,

the upper classes were taking theirs
from the ballrooms of Europe.

The dance that really stood out in
the 19th century

and which became the first modern
dance craze was the polka.

Len and I will be finding out

what it was like to polka at a grand
Victorian ball.

And to get to grips with this
exuberant dance,

I'm meeting Darren Royston,
historical dance teacher at RADA.

I have some deep memory from my
childhood ballet lessons

that it goes step, together, step,
hop,

but unfortunately that's about the
limits of my knowledge.

And this one, I'm going to be
dancing with Len like that.

We've got to be somehow as one.

That is quite a terrifying prospect,
so we'd better get on with it.

Right, hello, everyone.

Hello. Today's class is the polka.

A couple dance in the Victorian
ballrooms,

but with rustic and peasant origins.

And all the dancing masters of the
day wanted to introduce refinement,

so you were gliding through the
floor while you were doing it.

Now, the polka is one of these round
dances,

so you can't polka until you've
waltzed.

So waltzing in the Victorian times
just means turning,

it means a turning dance. So we're
going to all come together

and start just waltzing around the
room.

The waltz developed in the 18th
century

as the European nobility refined
boisterous Germanic folk dances.

The polka added a hopping step to the
waltz's whirling movements.

Good. Right, now stop there. Good.

So now we're going to allow you to
meet a partner.

This is going to be the same
ballroom hold for the polka,

but it's been established through
the waltz.

So you're waltzing round. Two.

One and a two.

DARREN HUMS WALTZ

The waltz and the polka were a world
away

from earlier dances like the slow and
stately minuet,

and they saw couples holding each
other scandalously close.

HE HUMS WALTZ
Lovely! Hold it there,

Are we feeling dizzy? Are you OK?
It's so romantic! It is a bit
romantic.

I think we're falling in love.
LUCY SIGHS

Now think of your little old feet

that are going to learn the polka
hopping rhythm.

That's the bit I remember from my
childhood dancing lessons,

step, together, step, hop, yeah? Yes.

The hop is important, but all the
dancing masters

would be having a...a heart attack
if they saw you hopping so high...
Was that not a good hop?

..and jumping with your legs so
springy,

because now it's about gliding along
the floor.

But for little girls doing ballet
class... Are you saying that my
hop was inelegant? Erm...yeah.

So the polka step involves a hop,

but keeps the foot very tight to the
other foot.

And it's just a preparation before
you do the polka step,

which is going to be a...glide,
cut, spring.

Then you do your little preparatory
hop with the other foot.

Slide, cut, spring.

Hop.

Slide, cut, spring.

Hop. So remember all that
refinement. Mm.

The steps have to be even smaller,
even tighter.

And here we go. And...hop one,
cut, spring.

Hop one, cut, spring.
Hop one, cut, spring.

'I think she has to work very hard

'to kind of control that energy that
she's got.'

It's hard to know what will
happen when she's with a partner,

so next class will test that.

On the floor. And how do you do?
And who are you?

And hop, step, step.
And hop, step, step.

LUCY LAUGHS

In the early 1800s,

the new dances gave new opportunities
for members of high society

to get tantalisingly close to each
other,

creating perfect conditions for
courtship and romance.

And the most exclusive place to
meet YOUR eligible match

was Almack's, a club that once
stood in St James's, London.

People called it the "Marriage Mart".

Getting onto the subscription list
for Almack's,

the guest list, if you like,

was such a big deal that people even
wrote poems about it.

All on this magic list depends -

fame, fortune, fashion, lovers,
friends.

But if once to Almack's you belong,
like monarchs, you can do no wrong.

The club was ruled with an iron rod

by seven well-connected women known
as "the patronesses".

With the power to make society
marriages in their hands,

they decided who could attend

and enforced strict regulations
on correct behaviour and attire.

I've come to the ballroom of the
Savile Club in Mayfair

to find out what it was like to dance

at Regency London's hottest
nightspot.

I'm quite excited by the idea that we
have these lady dragons in charge.

Is this girl power in a masculine
world?

Well, in a way, it is.

In their connection with Almack's,

they were models of propriety,
fantastically strict.

Even specifying, you know,

which girls were allowed to dance
which dance,

depending on their good behaviour.

We've arrived at Almack's,

it's Wednesday night, it's ten
o'clock, it's our big night out,

what are we going to experience?

Dancing itself would have been
very traditional.

If you'd popped your head round the
door, you'd have thought,

"Oh, they're just dancing country
dances."

For the people involved, of course,

it's almost sort of electric
because it's like speed dating.

BOTH LAUGH

Here are the young girls looking for
husbands.

And here are the men thinking, "How
much money has she got?"

You know, "Is she charming enough?
Will she do well?

"What will the other people at
Westminster think?" et cetera.

I mean, have tiny moments in which
to make a great impression

and all the time you're looking
and thinking, "Is that the one?"

Although, probably... "Could it be
you?"

"Cold it be you?" Exactly.
BOTH LAUGH

And the dragons also took their role
as kind of marriage organisers very
seriously.

So that if a young man had a ticket
and he came for two years

and there was no sign of romance,

when he applied again the third
year, I'm afraid he was thought to
be out,

perhaps because he was not oriented
in quite the correct direction.

Excellent.

You're a dragoness yourself!
I'm a dragon. I am!
BOTH LAUGH

The rigid regime was not
to everybody's tastes.

A visiting German nobleman remarked

that it was "like being at a cattle
market".

So even people who'd got through
the fabled doors of Almack's

could find it a little disappointing.

The dances were boring,

there wasn't much to eat, there was
even less to drink.

By 1814, the lady patronesses
were worried -

eligible bachelors were staying away.

So they took action.

They introduced a rather racy,
new dance called the quadrille.

And when that didn't work, they even
introduced

the dangerous, dirty, new dance that
had been sweeping Europe...

This was the waltz.

MUSIC: Take This Waltz
by Leonard Cohen

# Take this waltz

# Take this waltz... #

Whilst the upper classes were
mingling in stuffy Almack's,

the lower classes weren't to be
outdone.

After a hard day's graft in the
factory,

they wanted to let their hair down.

Duty laws passed in 1825 slashed
the price of spirits

and led to new drinking
establishments

popping up across London.

They were called gin palaces,
and it was here

that the working folk could drink
and dance in luxury.

So this would be quite a posh place
for the working classes? Mm.

Exactly. Home would be perhaps one
room in Bethnal Green,

where I know your own family came
from,

with eight, nine, ten other people

living, working, sleeping all in
one room in a grotty tenement.

So, coming in from the dark streets
outside

into this beautifully lit, really
ornate, palatial interior.

They call it a gin palace
for a reason. Yeah.

And, you know, given the chance
between hanging out at home in a
slum

and coming in here for a bit of gin
and a knees up,

you can see why it appealed to
people so much, can't you? Yeah.

And what sort of dancing would
they have been doing in these pubs?

It wasn't a sort of sedate sort of
stuff? No!

Quite a contrast to your formal
ball, as you can imagine,

that the middle and upper classes
would have been having.

There wasn't any waltzing,
generally. This was kind of a class
divide over the waltz.

The waltz was a bit posher. So they
loved the jig, something they
called the flash jig,

and the hornpipe, a lot of people
would dance the hornpipe.

They had a clog version, the clog
hornpipe.

They called it a knees-up for a good
reason -

it really was very, very lively,
very energetic dancing.

And we can see, this is an
illustration by George Cruikshank,

he was Charles Dickens' first
illustrator.

Yeah. They all look a bit rough,
don't they? Yeah. They all look
slightly drunk.

That woman's got her bonnet off.
And I like... I like up here,
the rules, you know.

"No two gents to dance together."
I know.
SHE LAUGHS

"The gents should not dance in their
hats."

Well, it's obvious that that's gone
out of the window.

As it says on this illustration,
"From the gin shop to the dancing
room,

"from the dancing room to the
gin shop,

"the poor girl is driven on in that
course which ends in misery."

Misery. Yeah. In misery, absolutely.

These are anti-working class,
anti-drinking propaganda. Yeah.

Well, I suppose,
up until this point,

higher society had had total control
over everyone. Exactly.

Yes, exactly. And suddenly there's
all these girls and blokes,

you know, earning a few bob, not a
lot,

and off they went having a good time
and they didn't like it. Exactly.

What they don't like is the kind
of idea of working class factory
girls,

who were the first kind of
independent women,

having fun, getting drunk, out on
their own.

The lower orders may have been
flouting the rules of etiquette
and decorum on the dance floor,

but the privileged classes in their
ballrooms

were becoming ever more tightly
corseted.

As the Industrial Revolution took
hold,

it led to innovations in fashion
which dictated the way we danced.

The waltz was a dance that was here
to stay.

The steps would essentially remain
the same,

but as the 19th century went on, the
way they were danced began to alter.

And the waltz developed hand-in-hand
with the fashions of the age.

The way you danced and the way you
dressed were absolutely inseparable.

The earliest waltz dresses
were nothing like

the rib-crushing corsets and
billowing ball gowns we associate
with the 19th century.

You're dressed 1810, thereabouts,
the classical era of dance.

And you've got beautiful fine silk.

It's high-waisted, so it's
emphasising your femininity

and making you look taller and
thinner and more column-like.

And the hemline is much higher,

so it means that we can see your
feet at all times.

OK, so... So we're good to go? Yep.

HE LAUGHS
No.

Sorry, did I wallop you? Yes.
HE LAUGHS

One, two...

'The waistline dictated the hold,
and in this period,

'the gentleman's hands were placed
very high up the back.'

It's the art of French waltzing.

And for the first time in history,

we're dancing and looking into each
other's eyes. Yes!

And the waltz is one of the only
dances

where you actually do spend the
whole time looking at each other as
you dance.

Thank you. Next!

By 1830, the waist of the dress

had dropped and the skirt had
ballooned in size.

It's made of stiffer fabrics to make
them stick out more

and to show the luxury of the
period.

Supported by petticoats.
And another one!

Including... You could have up to
five or even six.

But this one's corded. What does
that mean, corded?

It's string, basically, sewn tightly
into the petticoat,

so it helps the petticoat stick out

and give you that beautiful twirl.
Like a bell?

I'm guessing that this is going to
be about the twirling, is it? This
was.

It's going to be the fastest that we
do and it is going to be twirly.

Ah! So I guess that the hold has
dropped down a little bit?

I'm going to place my hand on your
waist. Yes.

And we're actually going to hold...
Oh, down there? Just down there to
balance out.

So does that go there? Yeah. Yeah,
just there.

So this is going to be fast. It's
going to be very fast. Ready? Yes.

And... One, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three.
One, two, three.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

You feeling giddy yet? Yeah.

SHE LAUGHS

SHE PANTS
Fine?

I'm coming back. Wargh!

Why did they want to be giddy like
that?

It was the thrill. It was the
delirium? The delirium of the world
whirling past.

And the swirling of the skirts.
And the swirling of the skirt.

I feel carsick!
HE LAUGHS

The dresses then began to make use of
Victorian technological innovations.

SHE LAUGHS

I look rather good, don't I?

You look amazing.

I LOVE this. Mm.

Are we in 1850 now? Late-1850s.

Mm-hm. And you can see the waist is
still at its natural height,

but it's much tighter in.

They'd invented metal eyelets,

steel boning in corsets, sewing
machines.

We could get you into tight, tight
fitted corsets.

This is industrial ball gown
business. This is industrial
ball gown.

And to make the skirt bigger, more
voluminous,

of course, we still have petticoats,
stiffened. Mm-hm.

But this is the miracle, steel
boning. Oh, wow!

So there are actual metal hoops
under there called a cage.

It's made out of steel? That's blue
steel, so it springs.

So how does the skirt change the
dance?

As you can see, the actual movement,

it starts becoming a lot less twirly
and a lot more swirly.

Swoopy and swirly! Swoopy and swirly.

So we're going to do a dance,
the two-step waltz,

which means that you can actually
slow down, speed up.

Like a game of bumper cars? Yes.
So you're now the driver.

Drive me.

BOTH LAUGH
PIANIST PLAYS WALTZ

Looking into the distance somewhere.

MUSIC STOPS
BOTH LAUGH

You've lost control of your vehicle,
sir!

Thank you.

It's almost incredible that that's
the same dance, which it is,

because it felt so different each
time.

And it's the clothes, it's the
dresses that made it.

If I hadn't have been wearing the
dresses, I'm sure that I wouldn't
have been able to pick them up.

The swing of the steel on this one.

Oh! it's like being in The King And
I.

WALTZ MUSIC

The waltz was a highly fashionable
dance,

but it could induce low morals and
strong emotions.

For Lady Caroline Lamb, the
19th-century socialite and author,

the waltz became an all-consuming
passion,

even to the detriment of the other
loves in her life.

MUSIC: Come Waltz With Me
by Frank Sinatra

Lady Caroline Lamb became obsessed
with the new dance of the waltz.

These are pictures from her
sketchbook

of people learning how to waltz.

What I like about these pictures

is that they don't show graceful
couples swirling around the floor,

these people are struggling with it,
it's difficult.

In her letters, Caroline Lamb

describes how she and her friends
would practice waltzing all day

and then they'd waltz all night at
balls.

In 1812, she was at the height
of her waltzing frenzy

when she was introduced to the
poet, Lord Byron.

She was the one who would call him
"mad, bad and dangerous to know"

and the two of them quickly became
lovers.

Caroline might have been head over
heels about the waltz,

but Lord Byron certainly wasn't.

In fact, he wrote this poem about
how scandalous this was.

"Say - would you wish to make those
beauties quite so cheap?

"Hot from the hands promiscuously
applied

"Round the slight waist, or down the
glowing side."

It's been suggested that Byron hated
the waltz so much

because he was born with a club
foot,

which meant he couldn't dance it
himself.

The sight of Caroline waltzing
in another man's arms

made him so jealous that he made her
promise

she would never dance
the waltz again.

Caroline was so besotted that she
did what he asked and she gave up
waltzing.

But their affair didn't last long,

Lord Byron's wandering eye saw to
that.

They broke up, and when they met each
other for the first time afterwards,

it was at a ball and she said to him,
rather bitterly,

"I suppose I CAN waltz now."

Byron's reply was,
"With everybody in turn.

"You always did it better than
anybody.

"I shall have great pleasure in
seeing you."

Now that was a pretty devastating
put-down.

Caroline went and hid herself in a
side room

and there she got hold of a weapon.

Depending on which source you
believe,

it could have been a knife or a pair
of scissors or a bit of broken glass,

and she tried to slit her wrists.

She wasn't successful, but blood did
go all down her gown.

This became a society scandal and
Caroline's name was blackened.

And people thought that this was all

because of the dangerous passions
aroused by the waltz.

WALTZ PLAYS

Scandals like this unsettled the
upper classes.

And by 1816, the national newspapers
were outraged by this intimate
couples dance.

The Times got really, really angry
about it.

"So long as this obscene display

"was confined to prostitutes and
adulteresses,

"we did not think it deserving of
notice,

"but now that it is attempted to be
forced on the respectable classes

"of society by the evil example of
their superiors,

"we feel it is our duty to warn
every parent

"against exposing their daughters
to so fatal a contagion.

"And we trust it will never again
be tolerated in any moral English
society."

The waltz caused such a stir,
heaven knows

what would have happened if they'd
been twerking!

Even though the waltz continued to
draw criticism in the press,

the dance crazes of the 19th
century couldn't be stopped.

By the middle of the century, a new
raucous folk dance, the polka,

was set to take the nation by storm.

# The p-p-p-p-polka

# It is p-p-paradise

# And you got to d-d-dance it

# Cos it's, oh, so n-n-nice... #

First performed on the stage
in Britain in 1844,

it was an instant hit in the
ballroom

and, for a while,
overshadowed the waltz.

The polka got absolutely everybody
onto the dance floor.

From Queen Victoria down, it was
a dance with truly universal appeal.

# The p-p-p-p-polka is the d-d-dance
for you. #

The polka's story had begun in the
early 1800s

in the fields of Bohemia, now known
as the Czech Republic.

A teacher called Joseph Neruda
taught his students steps

he had seen a young servant girl
performing,

and in no time the dance was
sweeping across Europe.

The polka is still a strong part of
the Czech identity,

which is why I've come see how it's
performed

at the Czech and Slovak Club in
London.

ACCORDION PLAYS POLKA

LEN LAUGHS

Hello. Nice to meet you.
Hello. Nice to meet you.

Oh! Whoa-ho-ho, lovely!

Oh, I like it. I like the feeling
of it. It's got...bounce to it.

It comes from eastern part of
Slovakia which is called Saris.

That's the name also, Sariska polka.

LEN LAUGHS

Oh! What I would love is to see it
danced.

WOMAN YELPS

MAN: Hey! Hup!

WHISTLING

WOMAN YELPS

WOMAN YELPS

WOMAN YELPS

Hey! Hup! Wahey!

Oh, I love it!

Oh, yes! You get a ten from Len!

Now, how do... How do you hold to
begin when you went round in the
great circle?

Like this? Which foot do you begin?
So your arm... Yes, was here.

..is in the air because you are very
happy. I'm happy and I'm proud.

Yes. I'm proud to be part of your
nation!

I am a Slovakian peasant! Yes.

Yes. What's a typical peasant name
in Slovakia?

Janno. In future, I am not
Lenny, I am Janno.

SHE LAUGHS
Janno, the peasant farmer.

So how do you go? So...

LEN HUMS POLKA

Nice.
LEN HUMS POLKA

BOTH YELP

WHISTLING

One more time.

Left leg...opening out.

Wah!
WHISTLING

'The passion for the polka was
unprecedented,

'and it chimed with this age of
ingenuity.

'The Victorians dubbed it
"polkamania".'

I can see why people went crazy for
the polka -

it's a dance full of life!

In Victorian England, the polka was
such a phenomenon

that canny entrepreneurs cashed in
on its popularity.

All sorts of things were named after
it, polka hats, Polka Street, polka
pudding,

in the hope that they'd be a big hit
just like the dance.

Most polka spin offs vanished
without a trace, but one,

the polka dot, has certainly stuck
around.

Cheers, everyone! ALL: Cheers!

MUSIC: The Blue Danube
by Johann Strauss

DOG BARKS

The 19th century was an age of
brilliant innovation.

Brunel was changing the world with
the marvels of engineering

and new possibilities for
communication, travel and trade were
opening up.

And in middle-class homes,
entertainment was to change radically

with the invention of the upright
piano.

This one belonged to three sisters,

they bought this piano second-hand in
1833.

The eldest of them, Charlotte, had to
give up playing

cos her eyesight wasn't good enough.

The youngest one, Anne, was a lovely
singer,

but the musical star of the family
was the middle sister, Emily.

She could play with precision and
brilliance.

SHE PLAYS THE BLUE DANUBE WALTZ

But they weren't just any old
middle-class family.

These three were the world famous
novelists, the Bronte sisters.

And it's very exciting for me to be
able to play their actual piano.

SHE PLAYS THE BLUE DANUBE WALTZ

Derek, what difference did it make

when these new upright pianos came
in?

Well, this one that we have here is
1820s, late-1820s.

At this time, someone had the
inspired idea

to put the strings vertically
instead of horizontally.

So the immediate saving was on space

and people could gather round and
listen to the pianist.

And were they status symbols? Oh,
yes,

like owning a car in the 1950s or
early-'60s,

when, you know, not everyone had
these.

And you would find a way of
affording a piano.

In fact, hire-purchase was invented

specifically to enable people to buy
pianos.

And what kind of music were the
Brontes playing on it, then?

Of course, you could play your
sonatas, you could play the
classical repertoire,

but in the home and particularly
entertaining visitors,

songs and dance music was what went
down best of all.

Very quickly, the waltz and the
polka took over as THE popular
dances.

Is it fair to say that of all the
danceable waltzes,

the most famous is The Blue Danube?

Oh, without a doubt. I think so.

This was a piece that sold in
immense quantities.

The publisher used copper plates,

each one could produce 100,000.

Within five years, they'd worn a
copper plate out.

By the end of the 19th century,

I think he'd used 100 of these
copper plates,

so it's the first million-seller,
really.

Let's have a go!

OK. All right.

THEY PLAY THE BLUE DANUBE WALTZ

By the 1850s, the polka's popularity
was pushing the waltz to one side.

After getting fired up by the Slovak
polka dancers,

I'm looking forward to meeting
Darren

to see how the dance was performed
by the more reserved Victorians.

Your pupil is here. Great. Nice to
see you, Len. Nice to see you.

I've got great news. Yes? The polka.
The polka? I think I know it.

OK. Sort of. Yeah. Right, what's
the polka then?

It's a skipping, galloping,
hopping-type dance.

It goes something like this.

LEN HUMS POLKA TUNE

# And round the block

# And that's the way to polka! #
All right, I've got to stop... I'll
stop you there.

Yeah, that's absolutely right...in a
way. In what way?

What we're going to be looking at
is in the 19th century

when the polka took on as a big
fashion in the ballrooms,

they had dancing masters like me,
who wanted it a lot more refined
than that.

Refined? Refined.

Because ballrooms now had these
beautifully polished floors,

so instead of all those wild
hoppings and kickings,

it's all about refinement, sliding

and very much about where the feet
are.

You've disappointed me. So what
we're going to do is refine it?

Refine it.

And round we go.

That's it.

Now, this is no disrespect to Lucy,

who I am looking forward to dancing
with,

however, on the day...could I dance,
perhaps, with you?

The polka wasn't the only popular
dance of the 19th century with rustic
roots.

Britain own home-grown country dances
also enchanted the nation.

BAGPIPE MUSIC
After you. Thanking you.

FIDDLES PLAY A REEL

The Scottish reel had been around
since the 16th century,

but it was made popular by Queen
Victoria.

She found the polka a little bit too
racy.

During trips to Balmoral,

she preferred to indulge in this more
wholesome type of dance.

Right, the good thing about wearing
a kilt against trousers,

you actually don't need to take your
shoes off. That's very true.

Yes, see. Very true. Right, now let
me get these trousers off. So, what
were you doing just now?

So we were doing a country dance
called Mrs Mcleod.

And it's the sort of dance that
Queen Victoria

would have been taught by her
dancing master, Joseph Lowe.

Some people would be surprised to
think of Queen Victoria,

who we think of as having weight
issues,

skipping away on the dance floor.
Was she any good at it?

Well, she certainly was very
enthusiastic.

We've got lots of records from
Joseph Lowe's diaries

to say how much she enjoyed the
dancing,

that she'd join in with her
children, local people,

and clearly she got a lot of
pleasure from it.

She did at one time confide in her
dancing master

that she was a bit worried her style
of dancing

might be a bit too masculine.

Have you got something slightly
larger?

Slightly larger? Well, I...

This one's slightly shorter, but it
might go round.

The girls...the girls would like
it, you know.

I'm a bit of eye candy for a lot of
the ladies.

Give me a little...a little picture
of the family dancing from Lowe's
diaries,

from the dancing master's diaries.
Well, it would be very informal,

the Queen and her family doing a
reel of four perhaps, or a reel of
Tulloch,

and sometimes this would go on until
three o'clock in the morning.

Clearly, they were having a great
time.

In fact, Lowe was almost thinking
they were having too much of a good
time.

Ooh! Now, does that give you a
little more comfort and confidence?
Ooh, now!

Ooh! I always like a girdle!
Oh, yes.
LAUGHTER

The Queen and Prince Albert had
fallen in love with Scotland,

buying Balmoral in 1852 so they could
retreat there every summer.

With this royal seal of approval,

the Highlands and its dances became
all the rage in Victorian society.

The Eightsome Reel is THE most
celebrated Scottish dance and it's
easy to see why.

And one, two, three. Two, two,
three.

Left, right. Left, right.

And one, two, three. Two, two,
three. Left, right. Left, right.

Lovely. Very good.

Now then, Len. Yes? For the men,
it's all a bit more robust. Good.

That's what I want. So we start the
same as before. One, two, three.

Yeah. Two, two, three. But instead
of doing those rather dainty points,

we're going to do high cuts.

High cuts are for men, real men.
High cuts? High cuts, yes.

Show me a high cut. So we'll lift
our left leg behind our right calf.

Oh, no. Then that. No! That and
that.

LAUGHTER
That's not manly at all.

I've got to be honest with you, I'm
cheating. Are you?

I am. I'm doing whisks in the samba.

Two, two, three. Three, two, three.

OK. Four, two, three. Len, left,
right, left, right. Oh, shut up!

LAUGHTER

One, two.

And...left, right. Ooh! Way-hey!
APPLAUSE

Wahey! No, no, no!
LAUGHTER

Oh!

That's it.

And back again.

You missed that bit.

During Queen Victoria's reign,

a quarter of the world's population
was under British control.

It was on the nation's playing
fields

that public schools taught the
future men of industry and empire.

Dancing lessons were pushed aside

as sport gave the young men
their fighting, competitive spirit.

Ohh!

In spite of the popularity of the
polka,

as the end of the century
approached, high-society men

retreated from the ballrooms as they
no longer knew how to dance.

And with all this talk of empire,

dancing was now viewed as
effeminate,

as a letter in the press pointed
out.

"When nature built man, she gave him
an arm to wield a sword and a foot
to tramp the world,

"but never a toe to trip with light
and airy tread

"across the polished floors of a
19th-century ballroom."

It's extraordinary that those
Victorian attitudes of men dancing
have never really gone away.

Men still worry that dancing isn't
what real men do.

And, crazy as it sounds, there are
plenty of men who still believe

that dancing really well is actually
more embarrassing than dancing
really badly.

He's got him! Whoa!

MUSIC: Polka Face
by Weird Al Yankovic

Right. Lucy, we better get warmed up
for this,

we don't want to pull a fetlock.
SHE LAUGHS

50 years earlier, at the peak of
polka fever,

The Times was reporting that dancing
masters had to work "day and night"

to keep up with the demand for polka
lessons.

We want to polish our steps and see
how it feels

'to dance together in the Victorian
ballroom hold.

'So we've come for a class with
our dancing master, Darren.'

Here we are! Have you been
practising?

Yep! Cos this.... He's been
teaching you his...his rough polka.

We've got to do the finesse, it's
got to be the stylish one we've been
doing in the class.

This is the first time you're going
to be dancing together in a
close-couple dance.

Now you are literally in each
other's arms.

And later, you're going to have to
deal with the costumes, but forget
that for a moment.

Yes. Let's just have a go at it.
Have a go without the music. Are you
ready? And...

No...you haven't done that.

So Len's giving you the preparatory
hop.

One, two, three. And a one, two,
three. And the dainty step.

And a one, two, three. And a one,
two, three.

LEN HUMS POLKA TUNE

Yes, now the thing is, Len...

Yes, yes, yes, yes! I've got it. Oh!
Stop, stop, stop!

It's just too rough! It's too rough!

We need to make it fine. Finesse!

Remember, this has come from the
waltz.

Remember, this has come from a
beautiful turning dance.

And then they've just added a little
hop, when they need it.

OK? Yes. To get the light and
airiness of the dance.

I'm sure it will come better when
I'm in costume. I'm not so sure
about that, but let's see.

'Both of them have come on a lot.
This is now in Len's territory,

'but everything that I'm trying to
get him to do is before the time

'that it becomes a set couple dance,
so he's having to unpick things.'

With Lucy, she's now dancing
with someone, in someone's arms,

which is very different to what
she's been doing before.

'They've got quite a way to go.
It's still a bit raucous and wild,

'and if they can find that refined
delicacy, then they'll be really
doing something quite special.'

DARREN LAUGHS
Well done. Well done.

Lucy, you're supposed to be an
academic.

SHE LAUGHS

With men losing interest in the
ballroom, late-Victorian ladies

turned instead to solo dancing of a
type first seen in places like
this, the Normansfield Theatre,

which was once a 19th-century music
hall.

Music halls had been places for
working-class entertainment,

but now they were drawing in

all levels of society with their
variety acts.

The one that grabbed female attention
was the skirt dance.

APPLAUSE

Now that I have to try.

Now, do you see a beautiful elegant
butterfly

or do you see a great big hefferlump?

Oh, a beautiful butterfly.

What exactly was the status of the
dance?

Because it came from the lowbrow
music hall, didn't it?

It was... It was a very strange
mix

of, I suppose, high art
and low culture.

Is it quite respectable? I do feel a
bit underdressed.

Well, I think classical attitudes

were still considered quite popular
at the time.

So I suppose you have the idea that
if one's covered in white drapery

it's...it's like the classics,
it's artistic.

Oh, well, that's a good get-out
clause.

So what are the moves, then?

Well, they... I like to think of
them...

They were natural world-inspired,
like flowers, shells.

Up, two, three, four. Down two,
three, four.

When you do that, you look like the
girl in an Art Nouveau poster

with all of those swirly shapes.

Well, that's what those posters
come from, it's based on these
girls.

From this dance, I suppose. Yes.
Oh, isn't that brilliant.

I think it's really interesting
that this upper-class dance

emerges from the lower-class
tradition of the music hall.

And I think that if you were a lady
used to being led around in an
overheated ballroom

by a man who wasn't very good at
dancing, then this must have been a
revelation.

It's airy, there's freedom, there's
elegance.

It must have been like a breath of
fresh air.

In the last dress rehearsal before
our polka finale,

I'm getting the point of these
Victorian undergarments.

They may look cumbersome, but when
you're dancing, they feel great.

It feels very swirly-whirly.

And I'm sure this will help us
to...glide,

because we've been doing too much
skipping and leaping and not enough
gliding in this dance so far.

So, hopefully, this will help with
the fancy footwork.

"The most elegant people..."
That's us.

Yes, we're the most elegant people.

"..and the best dancers always
dance it in a quiet and easy style."

A quiet and easy style? A quiet and
easy style.

But we like skipping around. I know,
I know.

"And those gentlemen who rush and
romp about..." Is that you? Yeah.

That is you, it's you.

"..dragging their partners along
with them until they become red in
the face

"and covered with the dewdrops of a
high corporeal temperature..."

That's sweat. In other words, sweat.
That's right, sweating.

"..are both bad dancers and men
of very little good breeding."

Ah! So it's good breeding that we
need to show in this dance

as you're hopping and enjoying
yourself.

The music will be playing the
introduction

and you'd go...hop, one, two,
three.

DARREN HUMS POLKA TUNE

Try not to look at the floor, try
and look around at the way you're
going.

And...bring your lady to a rest.
A little bow.

A little curtsy.

The lady moving on.

And...meeting the next lady.

Prepare. And...hop, one, two, three.

Up, two, two, three. Up, three,
two, three.

What a transformation.

With all those undergarments on,
she's started to understand

what it was to control her own body
and to let the man lead her
around the room,

by being free and easy and enjoying
it.

So I'm hoping that all that sort of
romping has disappeared now

and she's able to just glide.

She says she'd like to be like a
swan

and I think that's probably the
image she just needs to hold on to
now.

She's still got to work hard, but on
top, she's looking beautiful.

The refined steps of the polka
required refined accessories,

and a Victorian lady had to make sure

she was equipped to impress at the
high-society balls.

Oh! Hello. Hello. Come in. If I fit.
I think you will.

I'm looking forward to seeing some
Victorian accessories. Good.

'I've come to meet Bridget, an expert
in Victoriana, to make sure I'm
prepared.'

So, Bridget, I admit that I'm not
fully ready to go to the ball, am I?

Well, you just need a few
accessories which any young lady
would have had.

Now, we'll start with a skirt lift.

You clipped the hem into... It's a
bit like a pair of sugar tongs. Ah!
Yes.

Right, now, if you hang onto that,
you would then thread a ribbon or a
cord through

and you would hang it around your
waist,

so that you've got your hands free
to dance.

I feel like a Christmas tree that's
only half decorated!

Give me some more ornaments to
dangle off me.

I think you would have needed a posy
holder, mother-of-pearl handle.

Can I put my finger through that? You
can. So I can hold hands
with my partner

and my little bunch of flowers is
poking out. Yes.

And in case he wasn't smelling too
fresh, you see.

Oh, the flowers are between me
and him! Yes, excellent. Exactly.
You've got a little nosegay.

Now, if we look at a tiny scent
bottle, which you might have in your
purse

to keep yourself fresh during the
dance.

That's the smallest scent bottle in
the world!

And if you look at the size of some
of the little purses,

you know, that would be a little
coin purse.

Oh, look at that bottle! It is
adorable.

And you would just... That's the
cutest bottle I've ever seen.

Another thing that you would have
had on your hands,

again, because it used to get very
hot and sweaty,

you might have had a very fine
pair of little mittens. Oh!

Now, those are terribly delicate.
They're not going to fit me, they're
too small.

But it would stop the palms getting
sweaty as you were dancing. Yes.

And another accoutrement which would
be extremely useful is a sort of
pomander.

And it's made of vegetable ivory
and it has little holes pierced in
it and you put scented wax in here.

And you could again use it to keep
your hands cool. Is that to rub
onto my hands? Yes.

Or to make your hands fresh. And
to make them smell nice as well? Yes.
It's like hand sanitizer. It is.

Oh, that's brilliant! Then we would
move on to your ball card.

Essential. Absolutely essential,
because...

It's absolutely, astronomically tiny.

What are the rules for operating with
my little programme, then?

Well, one of the things that you
have to be careful of

is not to allocate too many
dances to the same gentleman,

because that would be seen as
compromising.

If somebody books a dance with you,

then to say that you hadn't got it,
to rub it out,

to say that the message hadn't come
through would be viewed as extremely
unkind and bad manners.

So once the person's on the card,
I really have to dance with them?

Yes. It is... It's like a
commitment. It is.

If I'd said I was full up and then he
saw me sitting out a dance,

I'd be caught out, wouldn't I?
You would be caught out.

And you'd have to say you've got a
sprained ankle or something,

but then you couldn't dance for the
rest of the evening.

You're devious! You're devious! I
like it!

I think I might at last be ready
to go to the ball,

with my skirt lifter, my posy holder,
my hand freshener,

my perfume bottle and my teeny, tiny
dance card.

But, actually, I feel like I'm
about to sit an exam,

maybe A-level Ballroom Studies.

What are all these things for? How to
use them? When to use them?

But, really, I think that might be
the point.

The Victorians wanted to set me a
social test

to see if I belonged in their
ballroom.

At last the day has arrived for our
final performance of the polka.

I now feel like a perfectly poised
Victorian lady.

I must remember to curb my enthusiasm
for wild leaping!

Here we go. Let's do it.

Now, focus, a few deep breaths.

Are you ready to polka?

Guess so. Let's go!

'And I've got to make sure that I
behave like the model Victorian gent

'to fit in with our grand
surroundings.'

Ladies and gentlemen, the new dance,
the polka!

APPLAUSE

BOTH LAUGH

LEN SIGHS

Well, we got through that all right,
didn't we?

I thought we did it all right, you
know.

Yeah, I thought that. I was amazed
that we didn't go wrong, actually.

How they could dance it all night
long, over and over,

is amazing to me. It's the heat
that's the problem, isn't it?

I haven't got a fan today cos I
needed both hands for this dance and,
boy, did I miss it.

Oof! But I can see the fun that they
had doing it.

Yeah, it's nice and bouncy that one,
isn't it? Yes. It's jolly, it's
bouncy, you can get into it.

But you're not allowed to, as Darren
kept telling us, you're not allowed
to romp.

However, let me just say, do you
want to do it once more?

OK. Shall we? Well, while we've got
our shoes on. Come on. Let's go.

BOTH GROAN

Next time, I'll be taking Lucy on a
little trip to the Tower.

Shall we? Let's! Ho-ho!

I'll be getting a taste of the
20th century's

first true dance craze.

Before trying something a little less
exotic.

You have to jingle your legs.

You can't just kick them, you have to
jingle them.

That's it. And we'll be doing our
best to impress...

Is he supposed to do it like a fairy?

..at our very own 1920s nightclub
party.