Dancing on The Edge five part British drama TV series on DVD (2 discs).
Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children Of Men), John Goodman (Argo ) and Matthew Goode (A Single Man) star in this explosive new drama, written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Stephen Poliakoff (The Lost Prince). Dancing On The Edge follows a black jazz band's rise to success in 1930s London, before violence and prejudice brings it crashing back to earth. This original drama captures a moment in history where music transcended the divisions of class and race, until fear and hate once again tore them apart.
Dancing on The Edge Series Review
by New York Daily News
Don't be fooled by its out-of-the-way time slot. “Dancing on the Edge” is a complex, stylish drama with a lot of fine music and a lot to say.
Chiwetel Ejiofor heads a large ensemble cast as Louis Lester, a 1930s jazz band leader modeled loosely on Duke Ellington.
He has taken his band to England, and while the potential audience there might be best characterized as suspicious or indifferent, Lester also meets a small group of believers who can shape the course of both music history and the Louis Lester Band.
That includes Stanley Mitchell (Matthew Goode), a journalist whose beat includes music; Masterson (John Goodman), a rich man who can open any door if he likes you; Lady Cremone (Jaqueline Bisset), a rich woman with her own power; Sarah (Janet Montgomery), a photographer who finds a personal connection with Lester; and Jessie (Angel Coulby), whom Lester hires as a vocalist.
“Dancing on the Edge” isn’t the story of dusty bus rides to small village halls. Not long after we meet all these folks, Lester is playing for the Prince of Wales, who becomes enamored of Jessie.
The band is also hired to play the Imperial Hotel, an elite venue where band members are instructed to use the servants’ entrance.
The music gives “Dancing on the Edge” a faint whiff of “Boardwalk Empire,” but the show really has something else on its mind: the struggle of musicians against cultural prejudice and the struggle of people against social prejudice.
Many of the people we meet in the cast are good guys, which gives “Dancing” a hopeful tone, even when the odds go the other way. We want the folks who deserve it to win, and so does the show.