All language subtitles for BBC Dancing Cheek to Cheek 3of3 The Shock of the New.srt - eng(2)

'In this series, Lucy and I
have joined forces to uncover

'the British love affair
with dancing.

'I've been putting her through
her paces on the dance floor.

'And she's been giving me
a history lesson.'

Lucy, chop, chop, a little bit
quicker, please, time for lunch.

'From the 17th to the 20th century,
we've been finding out 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!

We've visited 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 dressed 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've been
experiencing the era's most

'iconic dances for ourselves...'

And then back to your partner.

When in the hell are we ever going
to get together and link arms?

The next bit, the next bit. You've
got to get the tension between you!

'..as we learn them
for a grand finale,

'where we're dancing
cheek to cheek!'

By the turn of the 20th century,

Victorian ideals were
becoming a bit of a bore.

People were still waltzing,

but it was starting to feel a bit
out of step with the times.

Out of that erupted the most
dynamic period in the whole

evolution of dancing in Britain.

There were new dances, daring
dances, dances for a generation

who didn't want to do it
the way their parents had.

These new dances weren't home-grown.
Foreign dances were all the rage.

We danced in unprecedented numbers,

two million taking
to the floor every week.

This was boom time
and there was money to be made.

So, how did we get from

the straight-laced Victorian
ballroom to this?

Throughout the 19th century,
new dances had arrived in London

almost exclusively
from Europe via Paris.

Edwardian Britain may
have been rather conservative,

but by the turn of the 20th century,

people were tired of
the same old dances,

and were hungry for something new.

What they got was
surprisingly radical,

and came not from Europe,
but from further afield.

New dances driven
by a brand new sound.

Hello, Ted. Good morning.

We're so used to listening to
different styles of music,

it's hard to imagine
what it would have been like

to hear a completely new sound,

a radically new kind of music
for the very first time.

Imagine if you'd been used to
hearing this...

HE PLAYS OFFENBACH'S BARCAROLLE

..and then suddenly you heard
something like this!

RAGTIME MUSIC PLAYS

It's irresistible.

This was the African- American
music of ragtime.

It was syncopated rhythms
and improvised melodies.

It was exhilarating, energetic
and downright dangerous.

For some, this was
exactly what was needed.

A new tempo for the changing times.

The radical sound of ragtime
arrived on these shores

arm in arm with some pretty
quirky dances.

RAGTIME MUSIC PLAYS

That was fantastic.

Thank you, thank you very much.

So those were the animal dances?
Yeah.

You did like a mix, didn't you?

Yeah. You slipped in a bit of...

Yeah, grizzly bear,
so it was like wah, wah.

Yeah. Forward and back, forward...

And then we got little bit of...
Turkey. Yeah.

The turkey trot.

And the bunny hop was that, boom.

The bunny hop.

Where did they come from?
They came from America.

They were basically, erm,

African-American dance forms
that were actually danced

on the plantation, dances - they
were called plantation dances.

And African-American slaves and
plantation workers would teach

their masters the dance steps,

and the upper classes would actually
go and do these dance steps

in private parties and clubs,
places like this.

I would imagine that the white
people were seeing all this fun...

Yeah. ..going on. Yeah.

And they thought, well,
we want a bit of this fun.

Exactly, yeah, and it was actually
seen as very risque, you see.

There was a story that was
written in one of the art papers

that a lady was given

50 days' imprisonment for doing
the turkey trot.

So, you can see how they
didn't it want to be, you know,

associated with negro dance forms.

Yes. So there's a real racial
element to this story?

Yes, there was a lot of racial,
you know, segregation.

Basically, ragtime,
we look at 1890 to 1910.

I certainly wouldn't be here
talking to you, Len, no way.

So, how did they arrive over here?

Well, it came over in two ways.
First, through the music,

cos within ragtime music there
were a lot of dance steps to do.

And also another way
was the upper classes. Yeah.

They brought it over,
and the crossover that happened

and the integration of them
both just made, you know,

African-American and, erm,

American Europeans
that went over there,

a whole genre of dance forms
that influenced the world -

not just Europe, the whole world.

Yeah, there's nothing new,
you can watch, you know,

singers of today... Yes.

..dancing and, and you still see
those movements in their perf...

Tina Turner! Yes.

Chuck Berry. What about
Chuck Berry going along?

All doing that, all that. Yeah.

Oh, the backslide or the moonwalk,
Michael Jackson did it.

Now, you look at the camel walk.
You've got...

Yeah.

That is your... Moonwalk.
Don't fall down the stairs.

Moonwalk!
No, I won't, your moonwalk.

Even when you look at Beyonce
when she's doing all this.

Shaking all the back,
the bottom. Nothing new. No.

They were doing it all the time.
Twerking, nothing new.

Yeah. It's from the Charleston.

Yeah!

You've got it all, you know, and
that's all the animal dances down,

nothing is new.

Ragtime music paved the way for
a whole new generation of dances

to cross the Atlantic from America,

setting up a battle with
the British dancing establishment

which would shape
the decades that followed.

'The most controversial

'and recognisable of these dances
would emerge almost 20 years later.

'The Charleston is the dance

'Len and I are learning
for our 1920s night out.

'So, I've come to take a lesson
with historical dance teacher

'Darren Royston.'

Right, everyone, up on your feet,

we're off to do
the Charleston today. Hooray!

So, I hope you've
got lots of energy,

cos this dance
is a crazy dance, OK?

The legs are going to be going in
weird positions, you're going to be

moving your arms around and
you're going to be having

a bit of a frenzy.

Now, Lucy, you'll be with Len,
so there'll be moments where you

meet him and you have to stick
together and really dance together,

looking as if you're doing
this mad dance together.

But then there's moments
when you break away. Yeah.

And it's your moment to
completely be a star.

Do your own little thing,
your own little show-off.

Right, let's come
to the mirror, then.

Now, we're going to have to now
look at the basic Charleston step,

the step that everybody
needs to know. Hm-mm.

So, it's the step touch, where
you're stepping on one foot

and letting the other foot touch.

So, I'm going to come and stand next
to you so you get the idea, OK?

Now, you're doing a step,
and just touching the foot there.

A touch of the foot
against the floor, that's it.

So you're just having
that little step.

That's it - better, and then as it
moves, now you can start to move

the foot, that's it, good,

and letting the arms go
with the legs, good.

So, let's just walk
around the room now, OK,

just walking with that step.

Just a normal walk,
as you see someone, step, touch.

I see you and it's like,
"Hello there." "Hello there."

And back.
We're still in the 1920s...

Hello there!

..so it's all kind of
high with the hands.

Yes, that's it, the head's up -
better, that's it,

now you're Charlestoning,
Lucy, well done.

Good. Step touch, step touch.

And how are you finding it with
this sort of wild frenzied dance?

Well, these hands just
want to go the other way,

they're really confused, they
don't know what they're doing.

Yeah, you've gotta have that
control of the opposition.

So it's there all the time,

but this is kind of a dance where
you're meant to let go as well.

Let's all get into one long,
straight line - Lucy, you come

and stand next to me and we'll put
some of these steps together, OK?

Now, the first thing we do
as the music starts is everyone's

going to do a little shunt.

Why don't we do it
towards each partner?

So you're going, shunt and away
and towards and away.

And this time face your partner

and do your runs crossing
with the right shoulder

all the way around...

to come back into line. OK?

Let's play the music.

And a shunt.

And with your partners.

Get ready to Charleston - and one!

And one.

Big finish and step! And down.
Brilliant, well done.

Stretch out, stretch out.

Now, I thought I'd be quite
good at this dance

cos I've got
the right haircut for it,

but obviously that is not enough -
and the prospect of doing

this for "Head Judge Len" in a very
short time is, is quite terrifying.

'The first decade of
the 20th century had seen

'the invention of the
electric typewriter,

'the radio receiver and
the rise of the automobile.

'From technology to art, the
world was changing faster than ever.

'In 1912, hot on the heels
of the animal dances,

'another imported dance came along
to shake up the British.'

The Argentinian Tango was foreign.

It was exotic, it was daring.

There was the close embrace,
the general sexual overtones.

This was truly shocking,
this was a dangerous new world.

From shopping to socialising,

the tango changed everything.

The Argentinian Tango first emerged
in the 1850s

in Buenos Aires, in bordellos.

Here, poor young working men
would dance with each other

because the only women around were
prostitutes they couldn't afford.

Wealthy Argentinian men would
hang out in these bordellos

to learn the dance.

They were the ones who would take the
tango on its travels.

Through them it arrived at the
turn of the century in Paris.

And what sort of impact did it make
then in the early 20th century?

Well, it was enormous.

It became much more than a craze
as young people wanted to...

To move on a dance floor

in a way that they hadn't been able
to before.

It was a dance that
influenced fashion,

mainly by loosening the skirt.

French women, of course, were the
first to shed their corsets,

they were the first to adopt the
tango earlier,

so round about 1910,
the lingerie suppliers in Paris

were bemoaning their
lack of business.

A skirt that was slit to the knee,

you have feathers, for example,
going up in the air

instead of being wrapped
round your face,

because you couldn't get close to
the man with a feather in his eyes.

Ah! And you had, you know,
demonstrations and classes.

Everybody seemed to take
to the tango.

It was the height of fashion.

Everything was orange,
completely bright coloured,

but especially orange, which really
was the colour of the tango.

So there's this tango mania
going on in London.

Tango mania. Who was it that
disapproved of the tango?

This was an age in London,
we were very conservative in 1912.

The Church particularly disapproved.

Establishment disapproved, I mean,
this was a very raunchy dance.

It was perceived as being about sex,

and it was man and woman together

in a, kind of, hold that had never
been seen before.

This is interesting because this is
a message from the Pope.

The Pope?! The Pope.
The Pope is against the tango, is he?

Absolutely!

"Pope denounces new paganism,
the tango." The tango!

You'd think he had other things to
worry about. I love this.

Well, presumably in January 1914,
this is what he said.

"The tango, which has already been
condemned by illustrious bishops

"and is prohibited even in
Protestant countries,

"must be absolutely..."
"Absolutely prohibited."

"..in the seat of the Roman Pontiff,
the centre of the Catholic religion.

"If parents do not protect their
children from corruption,

"they will be guilty before God,

"a failure in their
most sacred duties."

Well, if that wasn't enough to put
people off, I don't know what was.

But it didn't put them off,
they couldn't have cared less.

Everybody danced the tango.

In an age before mass media,

new foreign dances, like the
animal dances and the tango,

arrived in Britain via stage shows
and exhibition dancers.

These couples toured
an international circuit

centred on Paris,
London and New York.

'But a new innovation was to create
the first ballroom superstars.'

Brit Vernon Castle and his
American wife Irene

were the first professional dancers

to exploit this powerful
new technology,

spreading their influence further
and faster than any of their rivals.

Now let me tell you,
I love Vernon and Irene Castle,

and one of the things
that amazes me about them

is the impact they had
on British dance.

Despite the fact
they didn't live here

and only visited this country
a handful of times.

And one of the reasons we Brits
fell in love with the Castles

is down to this - the big screen.

'This was the dawn
of the age of cinema

'and the Castles captured that
moment in 1915

'with a silent film called
Whirl of Life.

'It was not only a very
early feature film,

'it was also, in effect,
the first instructional dance film.'

Well, Allison, of course
we all think of Fred and Ginger,

but of course there was
a couple way before that,

that in their time
were just as famous.

Absolutely.
They were in fact so significant

to the history of dance and so
famous that Fred and Ginger,

in their heyday,
made a film about them.

They were so huge in Britain...
Mm-hmm.

..and yet they virtually
never came here.

And I suppose a lot of that's
down to the films they made.

Exactly. They were some of the
first dancers to be filmed,

so they do really pave the way for
the cinematic dancers

that we think of more readily,
like Fred and Ginger.

You know, I can only speak
personally,

but the reason I got so
interested in dancing, was films.

You know, and I used to walk in

and I'd waltz out.

And I guess that's partly
what happened with the Castles.

Astaire said that
they were his heroes.

He did, and I think they really were
the first dancing screen icons.

What did they bring
to the world of dance

that hadn't been seen before?

Well, there had been a really
dramatic transformation to dance

that had been associated
with the rise to popularity

of ragtime music.

And with ragtime music
came a series of dances

and they were not like dances
that anyone had ever seen before.

There was also
a racial element to this,

since many of them originated
in African-American culture

that made the white dancing public
a little uncomfortable.

So what the Castles were able to do
was to take those dances

and transform them into something
that was a little bit smoother,

a little less wild
and something that went, er,

a little bit more mainstream.

RAGTIME MUSIC

They were the type of couple
that people watched

and wanted to emulate.

Exactly. They really embodied
the early days of Hollywood glamour.

Irene in particular
really became a fashion icon.

She bobbed her hair
before that was the fashion,

she wore a shorter skirt,
she wore a looser corset.

The Castles were wonderful
self-publicists.

They were, they really were a brand.
Everything that they did,

you know, there were a lot of
products that bore their name -

Castle House, Castle cigars,
Castles by the Sea,

their name was
on everything that they did.

They were in some ways kind of like
the Posh and Becks of their day.

Since Queen Victoria's death,

Britain had been increasingly open
to influences from abroad,

but while some people embraced
foreign dances like the tango

and the foxtrot, a group
of middle-class philanthropists

were leading a different movement.

They thought traditional
English dancing was a wholesome

and moral alternative -
dancing that could do you good.

100 years ago, this was one of the
most impoverished parts of London.

There was a charity worker
called Mary Neal.

She took over the running
of an evening club for sewing girls

who weren't very well off.

Now, Mary Neal had been
inspired by the suffragettes.

She wanted to help these girls
improve their lot

and she thought that
the best way to do this was

by teaching them how to Morris dance.

MORRIS DANCING MUSIC

Industrialisation had seen
people flock to the cities

from the countryside, leaving rural
traditions like music and dancing

under threat of extinction.

It was Mary Neal and her girls'
group, called the Esperance Club,

who preserved that most English
of traditions, Morris dancing.

Now... Theresa,
when I think of Morris dancers,

I think of beer
and I think of bearded men,

but there's a whole female side
of it too, isn't there?

Yes, and we can trace that right
back to the early 20th century,

when in the revival,
the very first dancers were actually

working-class girls
from the East End of London.

Led by this character, Mary Neal.

How did Mary Neal get started
with the folk dancing?

Well, a key person in this,
of course, was Cecil Sharp.

He's often thought of as

the architect of the English
folk song and dance revival,

but of course, without Neal,
it would never have happened.

Up until the point
of meeting Mary Neal,

he was known for his
folk song collections.

Neal was interested not only in
the songs, but also in the dances.

And then that prompted both of them
to go to search for dancers

and to adopt actually different
ways of collecting the material,

so that for Sharp, he believed,
you know, that what he was recording

was something which had been
passed on from the mists of time

and he needed to fix it
and for it to be accurate.

For Mary Neal,
she would get the dancers,

the male dancers from
the countryside to come to London

to teach her girls.

Once Mary Neal had got
her club of girls dancing,

how did the news spread?

She made sure that her girls
were performing at places like

the Queen's Hall, and it was
covered by all the top papers

and she would send her girls
out to teach...

Oh! ..all up and down the country.

And in fact, within, you know,
within a very few years

they'd covered every county,
pretty well, and, er,

there are some wonderful pictures
in here of the Esperance girls.

The girls! Look, look,

they're floating in the air.

They must be leaping up there.

So the Esperance girls
take to the road, if you like?

Yes, absolutely.

One of Mary Neal's most
successful pupils was

a young woman called Florrie Warren.

She was the best dancer of the group

and she had a life that she would

never have anticipated when she was
born in the East End of London,

because she travelled, indeed, to
America, danced at the Carnegie Hall

and ended up marrying an American.

So if Mary Neal set out to
improve the lot of East End girls

like Florrie Warren, wow! She really
succeeded there, didn't she?

She certainly did.

It seems to me that Mary Neal was
interested in the sort of lost world

of Merrie England and fields and
villages and all that sort of thing.

It's certainly the case,
and she wasn't alone.

It touched a nerve, the idea that
English dancing was wholesome

and good for you and rooted in
the countryside and in tradition.

This was one of the arguments

against the introduction of dances
like the one-step and the tango

that really, they are foreign,

that, er, really people should be
dancing English folk dancing

because it's actually
in their genetic make-up,

we would say today.

There is something a bit goody-goody
about "A-Nutting We Will Go".

Yes! I mean,
to us now, looking back on it,

it does seem rather twee in a way,

but at that time, this was material

that most urban people
and middle-class people

had had no contact with.

Mary Neal set in motion a folk
revival that would eventually

see English country dancing
taught in many British schools,

including my own.

I think Mary Neal would be
rather pleased to know that

there still are
female Morris dancers,

but I'm not sure
she'd approve of this.

We'll be starting on our right foot.

We'll be dancing...

right, left, right, hop.

Left, right, left, hop.

Right, left, right, hop.

BELLS JINGLE

Give it a little flick.
You have to jingle your legs,

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

Is that too much jingling?
It might be a little bit too much.

LAUGHTER

I can tell you're excited. I am!

BOTH: One, two, three.
One, two, three.

Hold it there.

Shall we do the dance
from the beginning? Yeah.

OK, this time, and clash,

right, left, right...

Right foot, left foot,

feet together, oh! Oh!

Double time, step it!

MUSIC GETS FASTER

Haul up!

Whoo!

APPLAUSE

I'm feeling the joy of dancing,
as expressed by Mary Neal!

And it's really great
to be dancing here on this spot

where she and her Esperance Club
girls danced 100 years ago.

The joy of dancing would be
the last thing on people's minds

as Britain became engulfed
by the First World War.

On the dance floor, things would
never be the same again.

The Great War had
a profound effect on Britain -

on the lives of the men at the front,

and also the women at home, who took
on traditionally masculine roles.

It also changed the way that
men and women danced together.

This was a really pivotal moment

in the whole history
of dancing in Britain.

After the horror
and the austerity of wartime,

people wanted to dance
like there was no tomorrow.

QUICKSTEP JAZZ MUSIC

Ragtime had evolved into jazz

and everyone wanted to dance to
the very latest tunes. Rich or poor,

soon there would be a glamorous
place to dance for every pocket.

1919 saw the first of
a new type of venue built solely

for the purpose of dancing -
the Hammersmith Palais.

Admission was cheap. On opening
night, 7,000 queued to get in.

Soon, 11,000 more palais
would open across the country

and would be crammed with people

trying out each new dance
as it came along -

the quickstep,
the foxtrot, the modern waltz!

The dancing profession, the teachers
and demonstration dancers,

no longer held sway over
what was in or out of fashion

on the dance floor.

The dancing public quite literally
voted with their feet.

This was the greatest dance boom
Britain had ever known

and it was dance
finally fully democratised.

The palais were perfect
for ordinary people

who just wanted to dance.

They went in their droves, they
danced for hours and they drank tea.

There were people with a bit
more money in their pockets, though,

who had a taste
for something stronger.

And there were those savvy enough
to seize the opportunity to cash in.

One of those was the legendary
Queen of Soho, Kate Meyrick,

known to her regulars as Ma Meyrick.

She rode the wave

'of a desire for a nightlife

'that extended beyond
the sober confines of the Palais.'

Do you fancy a drink? Oh, yes.

Two cocktails, but what we'd like,
something from the '20s.

I think so. Yes.

What about a Hanky Panky, sir?

A Hanky Panky. Couldn't be better.

Us two, we're always up
for a bit of hanky panky. Oh, yes.

Oh, yes.

Cheers. Cheers.

Thank you.

So tell me a little bit
about Ma Meyrick.

Well, she was very notorious.

She was London's most fashionable
nightclub owner in the 1920s.

People crowded to go there.

There was only one problem -
they were illegal.

Blimey, yeah?

Absolutely. They were illegal

because she served alcohol
after the official hours.

So these were
quite dangerous places to go,

so there must have been
a bit of a buzz going in?

Oh, yes, they were very edgy.

I mean, the 43
was really a shady club.

That was part of its allure.

So was it just drinking or was there
music and dancing going on?

Well, drinking was important.

Also, erm, at the 43,
gambling, card games upstairs

and dancing, of course, dancing.

She had very good musicians and
she had very pretty dance hostesses.

But it had a dark side to it,

especially for Kate Meyrick,
who was accused by the press

and hounded by a lot of people
for running a decadent clip joint.

They said her dance hostesses
were all hookers.

They said she ran drugs.
She went to prison five times.

There were other people running
clubs like this. They were all men.

Hmm. They didn't get sent to prison.

What type of person would it have
been that frequented these clubs?

Debutantes or gangsters,

war profiteers. Yeah.

The Prince of Wales, erm,
half of the House of Lords,

but at Ma Meyrick's, you had to be
wealthy enough to pay ten shillings

to get in, and if
she didn't like the look of you,

she would charge a pound.
And this is in an era where,

you know, the average wage
was only £3, maybe £5.

So she was a proper businesswoman.

Money was very important
to Kate, absolutely.

Legend has it that she would
have the takings for every night

in a big black handbag, and she was
never parted from it, you know,

and it was sort of under her chair,

and wherever she was, she had
this black bag stuffed with money.

She was a naturally gifted
businesswoman.

Kate Meyrick said that

anyone who opened a club with
a halfway decent dance floor

could make a living in the 1920s

because everybody wanted to dance.
Yeah.

This is what it was all about.

Dancing was all the rage and there
was plenty of money to be made.

Two more of those gorgeous
Hanky-Pankies.

Women had done masculine jobs during
the war, and now they could vote.

One dance perfectly captured this
new spirit of female independence.

THEY SHRIEK

When the Charleston arrived
from America in 1925,

it took the dance floor by storm.

CHARLESTON MUSIC

It allowed women to break free
from a man's embrace

and dance on her own.

The Charleston became
a full-blown dance craze,

synonymous with the definitive
1920s dancing girl, the flapper.

It was such a unique moment
for British dance

and I'm still trying to
get into a flapper state of mind.

Well, I'm about to learn
the Charleston.

Now, I do know a bit of Charleston,

but of course,
it's the ballroom version.

I bet Lucy wants to do
the 1920 raucous flapper version,

and I'll be honest,
I'm not looking forward to it.

I've got a bad knee.

HE WINCES

Ah, hello. Ah-ha, here we are.

I'm stripped
and I'm ready for action.

Well, you're going to need to strip

because this is going to be very
energetic, isn't it? Charleston,

all the dance manuals tell us
about the dangers of the knees,

about how dangerous it's going
to be moving in the knees,

so turning in, so do
a bit of a warm-up getting those...

I've got bad knees already.

Right. Well, this one.

This knee is particularly nasty.

This knee is in fine fettle.

I will do anything you want
with my right leg.

So let's put you two together

and let's just see,
just nice and slowly,

let's just step
one leg forward and back.

Oh, excuse me!

That was a great start.
You went, we both went forward.

Let's use the leg closest to
the front. Yes, so we go...

# Bam, ba-da, ba, ba

# Ba-ba ba-ba-ba, hey! #

Len, if you want to do a little...
# Lucy, Lennie... # Yes, good.

# Lennie and then Lucy...

# Oh, yes, we're doing
the Charleston! La, la... #

And what about a few jumps,
a few little jumps? Jump, jump?

A little shunt one way.
Oh, you go that way.

Now... Now the do-si-do?

Do-si-do, do-si-do
back round you go...

LUCY LAUGHS

The more of a flapper
you can be, Lucy.

Is he supposed to do it
like a fairy?

Well... Yeah, it's all like that.

They're kind of all enjoying it.

What do you want me to do,
stroll round like Colonel Bogey?

He's been doing that.

# Ba-dum, bam, bam da-da,
bam, bam, diddily-do-dee-do. #

# Do-do... #

I can do that, you see.

# Da-da-dee-dee-dee, dee-dee... #

Yeah, you look a bit...

It looks a little too...
A little kangaroo.

I think it just needs to be
little ones. Light and dainty.

Very tiny little ones.

That's better. That's it.
On your balls. That's it.

On your own balls!

Right, let's get this music on.

And one, two...

CHARLESTON MUSIC PLAYS

One, two, three, step,

and shunt, shunt.

And shunt, and shunt.

Run round. Do-si-do.

That's it, all the way around.

And knees, join,

and one, two, three, four.

And jump, two, three, four,

step, kick,

and step, kick and...

# And then it's Lucy! #

Go!

Don't show him all the tricks.

OK!

And over to Len.

Right, we'll have to work on this.

HE LAUGHS

And back.

And join together.

Charleston,

and Charleston.

And turn all the way round
together as a couple

and finish with a knee up.

Put your arm across there,

can't she jump? Jump, jump up.

Yeah! Fantastic, how's the knees?

Well, as long as it's only that,
and we get it right.

That's perfect.
Better than the knee up.

Better than the knee, we'll see it.

Go home bouncing. Off you go.

Lucy, come on. Let's bounce
out of here. Off you go bouncing.

# Dee-dee-dee-dee... Dee-dee...

# We're going to do the Charleston.
Lucy, Lennie... #

THEY HUM TOGETHER

If dancing has always been
basically about romance,

the Charleston-dancing flappers

were flying in the face
of that convention.

The flapper bobbed her hair,
she wore trousers, she smoked,

she drank, she danced the Charleston
with reckless abandon.

To some people, this represented

long-awaited independence
and freedom.

For others, she represented
womanhood gone dreadfully wrong.

The Charleston was not
a dance for romance,

for boy-meet-girl intimacy,

it was a dance of careless
individual self-expression

and it had got
dangerously out of hand.

In the early 1920s,

readers of the Daily Express
wrote a series of letters

debating the state of relations
between the sexes

in the light of
the post-war dancing frenzy.

It was sparked by a letter
from a soldier who

had endured his time in the trenches
by dreaming of the girls back home.

"Out in France,
or under the tropical sun,

"how often the temporary soldier
saw in his cigarette smoke

"the face of a dear, affectionate,
typical, home-loving English girl.

"Instead of the girls of our
fondest imagination, we find them

"madly given over to dancing."

"Sir, referring to
an article in the Daily Express

"headed
Girls Who Shatter Men's Ideals,

"I would just like to say that we are
not all fogeys and old-fashioned now,

"nor do we wish to look on
the serious side of life just yet.

"I think it is up to the girl

"to remain as young
and fascinating as she can,

"even up to the age of 30."

"The majority of men much preferred
a girl of modest disposition,

"that is, one who does not smoke,
flirt or jazz."

"The spirit of feminine independence
rules in the ballroom.

"We no longer, for instance,
wait to be taken to a dance.

"We pay for our own ticket
at the door, our own refreshments."

"No seriously-thinking man
would ever look for his dream girl

"in a jazz hall or nightclub."

I might.

Lucy! Chop chop, a little bit
quicker, please. Time for lunch.

But despite its critics,

millions were going out
dancing every week.

The dance hall business was booming.

And one remarkable innovation

would fully exploit the potential
of this growing market.

The way we listened to music
was changing, and changing fast.

In 1922, the BBC lined up
its first ever radio broadcast.

If you could tune in your radio,
which was no easy task,

then you could hear dance band jazz
live from the Savoy Ballroom.

And then there was this.

Oh-ho, yes!

This put you in charge
of what you listened to,

when and even where.

Before 1918, the popular music
industry were limited to

sales of sheet music,
but the gramophone changed all that.

Oh, yes.

This simple machine helped create
a new mass audience for music

and for the dances
that went with them.

You could listen to the very latest
music in your own front room,

or host your own gramophone dances.

And this, the portable, meant

you could even
take your music out with you,

in the boot of your brand-new motor.

Ho-ho, what a life!

GENTLE SWING MUSIC PLAYS

Oh, yes!

Ho, ho, what a life.

In just a few short years,
record sales rocketed.

Music and dance were now not just
part of British culture,

but an integral part
of the economy too.

And it was the public spending
power that dictated

what happened on the dance floor.

The commercialisation of dancing

and the relentless tide
of new dances from America

was pushing
the professionals to the sidelines,

but they were determined
to regain some control.

So, have you ever been in here,
the Tower Ballroom?

I have not, I have not,
my first time.

Oh!
Well, you're in for a treat.

The Tower Ballroom in Blackpool
has been at the heart of the British

ballroom dancing establishment
for more than a hundred years.

I know Blackpool extremely well

and I want to show Lucy
that it's still the place to come

to see ballroom dancing
done properly.

Thank you very much, sir.
Thank you.

There it is!

Oh!

It's the most fan...
I think it's fantastic.

Wow! Oh, it's a wonderful place.
Look at the ceiling.

Incredible.

Great, eh?

And then when you think of how many
people have danced here over

all those years.

It's... It's just great.

Ohh! It's lovely.

Shall we? Let's!

Hoh, hoh!

On your right. Oh, lovely.

Watch him. Don't start a fight.

Eh?

Oh! Oh, we could dance like this for
ever.

I like it so much.

Excuse me. What?

Oh! I've been taken, sorry.

Liberty.

Sorry, what's your name?

Now if floors could talk,
this one could tell a tale or two.

In the early 1920s, this place
would have seen all the latest

dances come and go.

With the dancing public deciding
what was in or out of fashion

on the dance floor, dance
professionals organised a series

of conferences to discuss ways
to get things back under control.

It was agreed there was a need
to get rid of the so-called

freak steps from the new dances, and
to agree on a standardised version

of the foxtrot, the one-step,
modern waltz and the tango.

These standard four were the dances
that would dominate British

dance floors for decades to come.

Leading the drive
for standardisation was

Victor Silvester,
competition dancer, musician

and founding member of the Imperial
Society of Teachers of Dancing.

Victor Silvester's big idea was to
provide strict tempo

music for each dance.

So wherever you danced it,
whoever was playing,

the tempo of the music would
always be exactly the same.

Silvester started an orchestra
that played strict tempo

and he sold a staggering
75 million records.

I think the musicians'
standardisation took some of the fun

and freedom out of the playing
of the music, but as a dancer,

strict tempo was a real asset.

It opened the way to competition
dancing which has been my world

for 40 years - and its heart
has always been here,

in Blackpool.

Well, now they've all gone,
I've got the chance to do something

I've been wanting to do all
afternoon, which is

to get my hands on the mighty
Wurlitzer.

This famous Wurlitzer organ
was played for 40 years

by the legendary Reginald Dixon,
known as Mr Blackpool,

he was the king of strict tempo.

Hello, John.

Hello. What an amazing instrument

you've got here - it looks awfully
sophisticated.

Yeah, it's world famous.

How did Reginald Dixon get his job
then in the 1930s?

Well, I believe that he said he
could play a quickstep for dancing

in strict tempo, plus strict
tempo is very important to the

dancers because
they're the first to know

if we go slower or faster and er,
he did that, he did it perfect.

So how do you keep the time, then?

We have a metronome
and you can set it to the correct
speed for the dance.

So did Reginald Dixon have
one of those or was
he like a human metronome?

I wouldn't think so, at
that time he would just guess

the speed of a quickstep maybe,
but, obviously it worked.

So can I have a demonstration of the
quickstep at 200 beats a minute -

that sounds pretty fast.
Of course, yeah, here we go.

HE PLAYS: Bring Me Sunshine

APPLAUSE

That was brilliant.

Now, can you teach me how to
do that?

Oh, I'm sure we can... OK.
..have a go.

So it goes...

C.

So we need a B, B flat, B flat.

B flat? B flat, that's the one.

We're going now, we're going now...

and back to C.

Then we're going back to the B flat.

B flat.

Hello.

ALL: Hi. Hi, Lucy.

'Now I've found my inner metronome,
I'm raring to go for my final

'Charleston rehearsal, the last
one before Len and I have to

'perform it in front of a crowd
at an iconic 1920s nightclub.

'And Darren has come up with some
moves for my breakaway solo.'

And what we'd like to teach you...
Yeah?

We'd like to teach you
the Josephine Baker Scarecrow.

The Josephine Baker Scarecrow?

That's what I'd like to teach you,

do you think you could be
a scarecrow?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Star of the 1920s stage and screen,

Josephine Baker was famous for her
wild, exaggerated dancing.

I think I'd be rather good at that.

It's...you hang yourself up
like a scarecrow and as you...

I knew she'd be good at this,
it's great.

And then as you do that you're
also bending up and down.

And now I'm just going to show
how...

Grrh. Exactly.

That's quite terrifying.

It is a bit terrifying, isn't it,
but...

So, we have...

one and two and three
and then the arms go right round

and then one more. One and...

and then do half a scarecrow one way
and half a scarecrow the other way.

Arms are going one way...that's it.

That's it.

And then on the last one go all the
way round to present Len
who is next.

OK.

Shall we give it a go? Yeah, I think
I can do that. So...

Len's solo!

Over to Lucy Worsley.

Whoo!

Here they come.

Um, this is clearly utter madness.

They go so fast, I'm never going to
be able to keep up with that,

I can...I can see it all falling
to pieces, quite frankly.

Standardisation had been
devised by professionals

to restore order to the dance floor.
By the late 1930s, it had taken

the edge off the public's
enthusiasm for dancing.

We know Mecca for bingo,

but in the '30s, the company
was a big dance hall chain.

Three, two, 32.

At its height, it was so successful,

that even the Royal Opera House was
turned into a Mecca dance hall.

Allison,
do you think it's true that as

ballroom dancing became
standardised,

it also became a
little bit boring?

Boring and overly complicated.

There was a feeling by the late '30s
that for those who erm,

were not willing or able to invest
in serious instruction, that it

had become a little bit
out of reach.

With numbers dwindling, Mecca
were at the forefront of inventing

new ways to get people back through
the dance hall door.

So, who has creative control of
dancing in the 1930s, would you say?

I think by this point it's, it's a
combination of

the dancing teachers
and the professionals

and a number of businessmen who were
definitely having a decisive

impact on what people were dancing
and how they were dancing it.

By the '30s you have this push
towards, erm,

corporatisation or franchising,
they had a slogan than went

something like,
Dancing The Mecca Way.

So that, whether you
were in Edinburgh or Birmingham or

Glasgow, you could know to expect
walking into that hall.

And so, in fact, Mecca was
really at the forefront of trying to

develop new dances that anybody
could do, that anybody would

feel comfortable with, erm,
and that was when they started

a series of novelty dances or party
dances, as they're called, wherein

effectively, people just walk around
in a circle doing silly things.

Erm, the most famous of which is
probably the Lambeth Walk.

# Once you get down Lambeth way

# Any evening, any day

# You'll find us all

# Doing the Lambeth walk... #

What's the story of the Lambeth Walk
then, where does that come from?

People think it's a sort of Cockney
legend from days of yore,
don't they?

It actually took on a bit
of a life of its own.

Mecca was very much interested
in suggesting that this had

a longer history,
but the actual dance that was being

performed then was entirely
a product of 1938.

It was just fun,
it enabled people to er,

to dance even if they didn't really
know how to dance correctly.

It's funny to think that they're
coming up with new dances,

not in ballrooms, but in boardrooms.

Absolutely, people were very

excited about the fact that there
was this very British dance,

and there was a lot of discussion
that it was serving as a bulwark

against Americanisation. Ah!

Because so much of what was
coming into Britain in that period

was in fact American music
and dances, and finally

they had something that was
home-grown, that was a huge success.

# Any evening, any day

# You'll find us all doing the
Lambeth walk... #

And then even as the war broke out,
there was

this important image of the er,
vital dancing nation.

They thought that this was a really
good morale booster.

There was this sense that
if we keep dancing,

this distinguishes us
from the Germans,

this is a sign of our fortitude
and a sign of our national spirit.

It really was being danced all over
the place and that was

part of the fervour, erm, people
loved reading stories about unique

places that had been danced, or that
the King and Queen had danced it.

Do you think it's possible,
Allison, that

the Lambeth Walk in 1938 was
the most danced dance of history?

I think for Britain that is very
well likely the case,

it really was a very distinct
moment in the history

of dance that we may never
see again.

It's all been downhill from there,
hasn't it?

To some degree, yes.

By the time that World War II
brought Britain to its knees

once again, dancing had been
through the two most rapid

and revolutionary
decades of change in its history.

Most significantly in these
inter-war years, dancing had been

thoroughly democratised
and cannily commercialised.

That era had a truly glorious
moment

in the short-lived dance
craze of the Charleston.

And that's where our journey through
300 years of British dancing
will end -

with one final performance at
the famous Cafe de Paris in London.

Lucy, are you nervous?

I am...terrified,
I've got the butterflies.

No!

I have, it's my favourite dance,
this one

and I really want to do it well
and it's really, really difficult.

I think if we just go out there
and give it plenty of razzmatazz

and plenty of gusto,

I think we'll be fine, yes.

I'll take your word for it. But I
must say, you look very flapperish.

Thank you. You do indeed.

You look very dapper...ish.

Let me have a
look at your flapper face.

Oooooh! Yes, thank you.

MUSIC: The Charleston

Like every dance craze,
before and since, along came

the Charleston, which shook up
the status quo, it became the

height of fashion and then it died
away when the next craze came along.

The dances may have changed,
but the appeal hasn't.

We've always looked for the same
essential ingredients -

relaxation, release,

and most importantly... romance.

Whether it's the minuet, the polka,
the morris or the waltz,

the way we've danced
hasn't just held up

a mirror to the world,
it's changed it too.

Hey! Hey!

Hey!

Ha-hey! Whoo!

Wo-ho-ho!

Got her!