A Disappointing Continuation

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

You get the gist of this quickly. Its a mystery set in 1930's England around a black jazz band and the near murder of one of its girl singers. But I was thrown in the first episode by the bizarre way the people were characterized. 1)*** Americans- angry, violent, sexually deviant and slightly uncivilized. No explanation for this. The white American man is insanely rich, fat a woman beater. The black American man was gone from the show fairly quickly. He was incompetent as a manger, thuggishly angry, obsessed with having sex with white women, and - despite having a death sentence waiting for him back in RACIST America- unable to control his violent ego and "attitude" enough to stay out of trouble and not get deported. 2)*** Rich/Royal/ Upper class English- slightly stupid, slightly racist, slightly horny, and potentially dangerous. Black English Jazz band- the band and the music/performances in this program are fairly bad. Not at all what was. 3)*** Black English female singers- This one really threw me! Jesse, the thinner lighter of the 2 singers is being swooned over as if she were stunning. When in fact, the actress is barely attractive. It seems to be an odd English thing to describe mixed race or light skinned people as beautiful without having to actually get one that fits the bill (which an American production would have done). Carla, the darker- but full figured black singer has a much better face. Her bone structure is very striking and on par with the white actresses- yet she is being sold as the less attractive and less talented of the two. Jessie is also being offered as a GREAT singer, when the actresses voice is ...well....nothing. Carla- the darker skinned actress is being played as naive and unambitious, and slightly dim witted- wanting only to prop up her better looking, more talented friend Jess. Its almost bizarre.Of course, the only good people are English and socially in the middle. The white woman photographer willing to love a black man, the black English man- who is very even tempered and plays piano, and the white, lower middle classwriter/manager of the band. *****THIS IS NOT A SPOILER- I have a feeling they will make Carla- the dark skinned girl singer the killer or co-killer (with one of the upper class, stereotypically defective males). She is too tall and too physically large to be good. It fits the weird formula of this mini-series***

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.

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.

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