Diagonaldi Very well executed

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

blanche-2 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.

steven-222 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.

Raymondander When was England portrayed as such a weird place? Director Stephen Poliakoff has served up a wonderfully realised vision of a land offering unthinking obeisance to its Princes while casual racism and anti-Semitism is unchecked by the surface good manners. In Poliakoff's 1930s London a black jazz band finds success and tragedy. But this is not just a drama about jazz, as some of Britain's better known critics seemed to expect. Dancing on the Edge casts its net wider than that with an evocation of mood and time both effective and affecting. Some of the sets are worthy of fine painters. Even Degas is referenced in one witty little scene with a ballet class. The BBC deserves praise for allowing the money, air time and creative freedom to realise the director's vision. We're likely to see a lot more of young stars like Tom Hughes (the debonair and highly-strung Julian) and Joanna Vanderham (the sister Julian is so dependent on). Stand-outs in an unusually strong cast of characters are Chiwetel Ejiofor's Louis and Matthew Goode's Stanley. John Goodman puts in as strong a performance as he gave in Oscar-winning Argo, a slight production compared to Dancing on the Edge.

lcwalshe 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.