User reviews

Cannot understand the current rating of this outstanding drama. The story, set over a few weeks in 1933, follows a talented black leader of a jazz band as he tries to get his band established in the London club and hotel scene. He soon finds he is meeting with royalty but that something dark is also going on.

Dancing on the Edge explores the slimy corruption of real evil as royalty, masonry, bigotry and sensuality all combine to provide a very particular view of the upper reaches of British Society.

The production values are excellent, and the 1930's are recreated in remarkable detail. The acting is uniformly excellent, with Chiwetell Ejiofor providing a compelling performance of a man caught up in circumstances spinning beyond his control.

Highly recommended as BBC drama at its best.

Good points: Matthew Goode was excellent in his role as Stanley. His character was original and he carried the show, in my opinion. Most of the others were all right and did what they could with the material. The story kept me watching and interested to the end.

Bad points: It took place in a depopulated London (reminding me of 'Survivors' or 'Day of the Triffids') and never convinced me for a second that it was 1933. The tame music seemed very unlikely to offend anybody at that date, when much 'hotter' jazz had been available for at least a decade previously. Some of it sounded more like the swing music of the forties. Tom Hughes' character and acting was ho-hum. The hiding from the police became silly and unbelievable in the last episode.

Like others, I cannot understand why the BBC think this director is something special and throw money in his direction. But it's worth seeing.

Firstly, at the time of writing (16 September 2013) the information for this on the main page is incorrect. It says this film/series is not yet released. However, I've just watched all 5 episodes on DVD (2 DVDs to be precise), plus the extra almost 1 hour "interview" between Stanley and Louis. The DVD release date was March 2013.

Like another reviewer I simply don't understand some of the poor ratings for this film. It was an immaculate production with an excellent cast for, I think, a cracking, well written story. It has style, suspense, humour, sensuality, good looks, great music and, as with so much of Stephen Poliakoff's work, a lot of intelligent dialogue and some fairly long scenes. But that's why I'm a fan of Poliakoff's work - it is literate, well researched and observed, and you have to pay attention. It rewards that attention many time over.

I must say there were some performances that were a revelation to me. Jacqueline Bisset for a start, and the late Mel Smith. But everyone was really outstanding in the parts they played. Joanna Vanderham is astonishingly mature well beyond her years (19 or 20 years old during the production) and is destined I feel to be a great actress. One cannot comment on this production without mentioning the singers - 2 established actresses who had never sung in public, in theatre, TV or on film before. They did their own singing and were amazingly good.

This new series has been trailed for weeks and the trailer certainly caught my attention so it already had a lot to live up to. I am pleased to say that it did not fail and I have very much enjoyed the first two episodes and looking forward to next week's already. Some of the music is quite exciting but I am not sure it is true to the jazz music which was being listened to in the early thirties but nevertheless very enjoyable. I like the casting,particularly the female roles and specifically Jess, Rosie,Pamela and the photographer. Jacqueline Bisset is excellent as is the Stanley character. Hope it maintains the momentum but it will be disappointing if Jess has been killed off already. Would expect to see more of Rosie as there must be some sort of love triangle to develop.

For so many people not liking this, it has a high rating here on IMDb. I enjoyed it but see its flaws.

I am not familiar with the work of Stephen Poliakoff, so I can't comment on the criticisms of him.

The series is about a black jazz band in the 1930s who is discovered by a music journalist, Stanley Mitchell (Matthew Goode). With Wesley's help, the group is booked at the upscale Imperial Hotel and even entertain Prince George (erroneously described during the program as the Prince of Wales, who was actually Edward, Prince of Wales).

The band becomes successful and is written up often by Mitchell. With two talented singers (Wunmi Mosaku and Angel Coulby), they come to the attention of a record company and radio. But tragedy strikes, and the ensuing events threaten to ruin the band.

I'm at a disadvantage here because I'm not familiar with early '30s jazz music, but the critiques say the music presented is actually from a decade later.The songs are original to the production, which were also criticized. The producers certainly could have found actual songs, but I suppose they didn't want to pay for the rights. A couple of the songs weren't very good.

It's an expensive production with some excellent actors: Goode, who I've always loved, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Louis Lester, the leader of the band, Anthony Head, John Goodman, Tom Hughes, and Jacqueline Bisset. Very formidable.

There was also criticism that the series did not really evoke the '30s. I thought it looked wonderful, particularly the hotel scenes. But I agree, there was something missing in the period feel. Fascinating to me was the statement in the series that the Brits didn't know what Americans sounded like until the advent of talking pictures, as well as the talk of the wireless. One really does get the feeling of limited communication and how far we've come.

Suspenseful, well-acted, this could have been more fascinating with some stronger writing, attention to period details, and maybe some cutting, perhaps to four episodes instead of six. The research wasn't perfect -besides the Prince of Wales ID, there was also the reference to Clark Gable. In 1933, Clark Gable was just coming onto the radar in the U.S. Ronald Colman would have been much better. The devil is in the details.

Based on a hitherto undiscovered aspect of British history, DANCING ON THE EDGE tells of the fortunes of an African-Caribbean jazz band in 1930s upper-class British society. Louis Lester serves an apprenticeship in the United States, then takes London by storm with the help of talented singers Jessie and Carla. Initially managed by Wesley, who drives a hard bargain but manages to offend just about everyone, the band is eventually guided by white fixer Stanley, who just so happens to run one of London's leading music papers, a rival to the much better- known "Melody Maker." Poliakoff has a fascinating story to tell of a basically racist society that nonetheless embraces the Louis Lester jazz band, which provides the kind of music than no one has ever heard before. The band are so successful that they even attract the interest of the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII). At the same time polite society has a seamy underbelly; if anyone dares to question the idea of white supremacy, then they are summarily dealt with. This rule applies to white and nonwhite people alike. The television series attracted mixed reviews on its premiere in February and March 2013; after having read Poliakoff's excellent screenplay, I am rather nonplussed as to why DANCING ON THE EDGE generated this kind of reaction.

No idea what to expect, but became totally hooked for these reasons: 1. Intelligent dialogue and storyline. A very well researched period piece dealing with both early 20th century British culture (a little American too); influence of music in culture (in this case mostly jazz); aristocracy relations with the poor (things never change); black (and other groups) relations with white power (money, politics, etc.). 2. Superb acting. 3. Superb period singing and accompanying music. 4. Most importantly for a quality film is attention to detail. 5. Suspenseful drama (Whodunit?). 6. Left room for a continuation which, unfortunately, doesn't appear to be in the works. 7. Interesting final episode of tidying up loose ends, even interviewing the dead as if they never died.

I loved this miniseries! It was very subtle and it made the viewer think. A room of people could watch the same episodes and gather different opinions about the meaning. I love British drama because it doesn't spell out everything for the audience. The Prince's proposition to Louis, the relationship with Julian and two other characters and the meaning of being on the edge. I love the expression on the main character's face when he realizes what it going on. The socio-political statements are subtle and clear as to class and race. It made me reflect on how far this world has come since then. The interracial relations and the color hue thing made me remember how it was back in the 70's and how different it is now. I also love the way color and class was discussed when money came into the picture. From sneaking through the back door to being escorted in the grand entrance. I wished it went on for another season where characters were brought back from exile and old love rekindled, but this is good enough. I think John Goodman is a compass towards good scripts and he makes any movie better. Watch it and enjoy. Being black and poor and hob knobbing with the leisurely wealthy can be dangerous for the ones on the edge of a society where color is still an issue. Being given privilege and then having it taken away can bring you back down to earth so you can see things clearly. Being poor and not having any nobility can also take you to a place where you feel you may transcend your status but like a young blue jay with it's wings clipped, you fall to the ground.

This television series from the celebrated Stephen Poliakoff portrays 1930s upper class London but focuses on a Black Jazz band travelling the clubs of Britain.

They mix with the high ups of polite British society but reveals an underbelly of prejudice, secrets and murder.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Louis Lester, trained in the USA but his jazz band takes London by storm when armed with two female singers.

Matthew Goode plays a music journalist who champions the band in his music paper. John Goodman turns up as a mogul who wants to buy newspapers.

Although there are twists and turns, Poliakoff needs to stick to writing. He needs a stronger story editor and get someone else to direct and interpret his words to the screen.

It looks good, there is a fine all star cast from Jacqueline Bisset, Jane Asher, Anthony Head. The music and songs which was written specially for the series is fine with a few memorable tunes but it meanders too much.

The murder story has little mystery as you have a rough idea who the culprit might be.

Beautifully shot, beautifully cast. OK the timeline regarding the music, historical events may not be bang on the nail. But its entertainment, not a history lesson.

Well as they often say in this drama that anything is possible...I have watched one part so far and loved every moment of it, the costumes, jewels, pomp and ceremony, snotty old stuffy people at the hotel...the Musical Express go getter editor. Watching all the characters are a joy to see unfold in this very enjoyable period story about a Jazz Band and the people that they get involved with.There is an underlying story of something strange that is going on, murky perhaps, which is keeping the suspense up. The strict civil servant working in the immigration department in the 30's and the problems with foreign people, it was all so different in this time and Dancing on the Edge really captures the moment, Thoroughly enjoyed it so far and looking forward to watching more. Please read all the reviews because everyone has an opinion and thank goodness I ignored the first review and watched it.

Slow and hard to watch, it feels formulaic with gratuitous use of violence against women as central to the plot yet unexamined.

The performances are good.

A clever story with enough intrigue to keep it exciting. The characters are all very interesting and their chemistry works well together.

Stanley writes and edits a local music rag and hears Louis Lester's band in a local dive. He decides to help them become successful and succeeds.

I wouldn't read the blurbs here accompanying each episode because they describe exactly what happens in that particular episode.

The production values, camera work, sets, costumes, make-up and hair are all great and authentic. There is just the right balance between the drama and the music.

They don't get too bogged down with the politics of "negro" prejudice which is refreshing. Yet we are always aware of it in the background.

My only disappointment was I felt the ending of Episode 5 was extremely rushed with a lack of the usual explanation and depth.

I assumed it was the final episode until I saw Episode 6 listed in the TV guide for tonight.

The Interview was something Stanley always wanted but I found the episode boring and superfluous especially since it wasn't the interview I was expecting. We didn't need this companion piece. They would have been better spending more time on the the end of the series although I think Stanley left us with a wimpy cliffhanger for a potential Season 2.

It's almost as if they ran out of funding, time or backing and several of the main stars left before the end of Episode 5. Episode 6 was improvised and didn't make any sense because Stanley obviously had been gathering interview material from the start.

While this makes every effort to appear genuine to the period, it is a superficial experience. The realization comes in the third episode when Lady Cremone (Bisset) says of a party that it will be "fun". Anyone who has read Mitford or Waugh, and Gibbons in "Cold Comfort Farm", knows that 'fun' was a banished adjective among people of that class in that period. It's something that the writer ought to know.

And while the set design and costumes and overall production is glossy it's like a fashion shoot. That fact comes out in the lack of story and drama - nothing much happens and very slowly for a long time. It has a contrived and much smaller stamp to it. Certainly, it does not justify its time or structure. It might have been done much better in half the time.

The music which ought to be central is not and seems of a decade later; in arrangement, style and solo voicing, unconnected to the early 1930s, false when matched against recordings of that time.

As to the characters. They are standard TV fare, but only half-formed. They say things as ciphers in some mimicry of what real characters might have said in that period.

Well with two episodes to go I really am disappointed with this show. The trailers looked exciting, sexy and well... gripping. What have I seen instead? Stereotypes, lots of "terribly, terribly, awfully, awfully" speaking and contrived scenes.

I don't get why Stanley is so hell bent on pushing the Louis Lester Band (although it's more a one man show as the rest of the band are sidelined except the two singers). The larger of the two singers is just so wet I want to slap her around just to get some form of response that isn't "wide-eyed wonder". Jess - well just don't care what happens to her.

Where is the racism I was expecting to see? - sorry one mention of a couple on a boat wanting their cutlery changed, and seeing the same thing demonstrated in the dinner hall moments later, does not make for racial tensions.

Where is the jazz for that matter? A program about jazz should have more jazz music in it, not two full songs and a few snippets. I don't ask for much but there should be more music involved somewhere.

All the rejects from the Great Gatsby (sorry rest of the cast) are just annoying, pouty privileged spoilt brats who are ultimately forgettable.

There is only one character I want to know more about and that is the legend that is John Goodman - more of him and his rise to wealth please.

The story line is meant to be bringing Jazz to the old ballroom scene of London. While I don't know much about the history of London jazz I think it started a little earlier than 1932. The writing just seems stayed and pompous, I don't know about any of SP's work, but I am not sure I want to see other works by him. Don't get me wrong I love a slow burning thriller (Tinker Tailor TV series is as slow as it gets), but there is no "thrill" no tension, no drama - for a drama that's not good.

I don't think I am alone in thinking this, but there are just as many who love this show. Watch it for yourself, but don't expect to be knotted up with tension waiting for the next episode, instead sit back with a cold gin on ice and enjoy the costumes, scenery and lighting.

The music is lazily anachronistic. Nothing else seems to have been given any more attention. Lacks style, drama and narrative. Characters are paper thin clichés, dialogue utterly predictable and inauthentic.

Shockingly disappointing.

Why are BBC attempts at this kind of thing always so embarrassingly inferior to their American counterparts. I refuse to believe we don't have script writers, actors and DOPs every bit as good. My suspicion is it has something to do with BBC management/ production.

In all ways terrible.

Off to reread Evelyn Waugh to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

This whole enterprise is so embarrassingly awful it is difficult to know where to begin. Is this play supposed to be a fantasy or some expression of reality? Jazz bands of whatever colour did not play in the dining rooms of expensive London hotels in the 1930s. Dance bands which may have contained the odd jazz man was the norm. The band in the play did not play anything remotely recognisable as jazz. Did band leaders stroll around London dressed like Fred Astaire in a Hollywood musical complete with opera cloak; I don't think so.

This 'hugely popular' band seemed to spend its time playing to an audience of about twelve middle-aged diners.

The cast of assorted weirdos and high society drop-outs was totally unconvincing. Where did the black band-leader acquire his impeccable accent; did he go to Eton perhaps? The play has simplistic plot lines and we know that the whole enterprise is going to end in tears. OK, we already knew that the assorted Windsor males were a set of privileged moronic uneducated fools and that sections of the upper classes would have gone along with fascism at the drop of a cocktail; but we could do with a rather more nuanced and sophisticated explanation than we are getting. I am only continuing to watch to see whether it will get any more awful.

The author appears to be the BBC's equivalent of the Emperor who is forever indulged with his fantasies. Perhaps I can be the small boy who points out that it is all expensive self indulgent rubbish.

Oh dear, the BBC must have blown their casting budget for the entire year on this one. It's positively dripping with movie stars, household names and hot, rising talent – which is just as well, because Dancing on the Edge really has very little edge to speak of.

The period atmosphere, of course, is immaculate. Stephen Poliakoff's five part 1930s drama about the birth of jazz in the UK is set against a background of thinly disguised racism, poverty and extreme right wing politics. There's also a lot of distressed wood and peeling paint, and the producers must have covered up every double yellow line in the West End.

Stan Mitchell (Matthew Goode), is the chain-smoking head writer of a struggling music magazine. Stan discovers a band of black musicians and launches them into London society, helped by bored aristocrat and chain-smoking music fan Lady Cremone (Jacqueline Bisset).

Bisset has been an international film star since the late 1960s, so one does wonder what she is doing playing opposite the likes of Mel Smith. But as beautiful as Bisset is, Smith frequently owns the screen as saggy-faced hotel manager Schlesinger. Mel has always given great saggy-face. His jowls were heading south even when he was a rising star in the nineteen seventies, so here's a role he was born to play.

With callous immigration officials, sinister Freemasons and half the German Nazi Party hot on their heels, the band manage to land a residency at a posh hotel in Piccadilly, and fast become the favourite plaything of the Prince of Wales and his champagne-swilling, chain-smoking buddies.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is hard to say but effortlessly smooth and polished as chain-smoking band leader Louis Lester – a character perhaps partly inspired by real-life, chain-smoking, black band leader Ken "Snakehips" Johnson, who died in the London Blitz in the early forties.

John Goodman (the fat, miserable hubby from Rosanne) plays fat, miserable, chain-smoking millionaire Masterson – a man with so many skeletons in his cupboard there isn't room for his evening suit.

Joanna Vanderham is pointless, vacant, chain-smoking rich girl Pamela. Vanderham does pointless and vacant beautifully, and luckily for her, in this series (unlike in The Paradise) she is not challenged with any tricky accents.

Jenna-Louise Coleman is in it, of course. She's in everything. Coleman plays Mitchell's pretty, chain-smoking assistant, and so far she's managed to uncharacteristically keep her clothes on. Good for her.

Dancing on the Edge is beautiful to look at and the original jazz music by Adrian Johnston is slick and authentically recorded. I just wish the series had been a little more faithful to the actual history of black jazz musicians in the 30s, and that Poliakoff had resisted the temptation to turn it into a tacky Agatha Christie murder mystery. Did I mention that everyone smokes all the time? Read more TV reviews at Mouthbox.co.uk

Prepare yourself for six hours of bad writing, bad acting, and really, really bad music.

Writer-director Stephen Poliakoff has become the M. Night Shyamalan of British TV drama. He started strong, with dramas that seemed to be new and different and even (hideous new modifier!) award-worthy. Then, with each new project, his threadbare bag of tricks became more familiar and predictable; what once seemed endearingly offbeat became simply irritating, and Poliakoff's narrative deceits became increasingly obvious, no longer distracting us from his inability to create living characters or coherent plots.

The downward spiral has led to this sloppy, boring mess of a mini-series. Good luck getting through the whole thing, and if you do, you will almost certainly be disappointed by the limp ending.

Particularly irritating is the music. Poliakoff presumes to resurrect a largely forgotten era of British entertainment, but the newly-written songs on offer here do not capture the spirit of the originals. Not only are they displeasing to the ear and badly sung, but the viewer is forced to hear them over and over and over.

It is hard to see how Poliakoff's next project can be worse than this, but if the trajectory holds, he will find a way to make it so.