In 2002, acclaimed British playwright and TV dramatist Stephen Poliakoff (“The Lost Prince”) stumbled across a curious detail about the London rich, one that would eventually be the inspiration for his new six-part series on Starz, “Dancing on the Edge”: During the early 1930s, the tradition-hewing and reflexively racist aristocracy there became totally entranced by jazz music.
“It was extremely unusual, if not unique,” says Poliakoff. “It was a time of enormous social inequality in Britain—an enormous gap between the rich and the poor. But this sort of fraternization happened and that they didn’t just like jazz music, there were love affairs between the aristocracy and certain black musicians.”
Nearly 10 years later, Poliakoff’s TV rendering of this stretch of time is a glossy, atmospheric murder mystery dense with layered performances. At the center of the period drama is the Louis Lester Band, a jazz orchestra — all played by real musicians with the exception of its white-tied titular band leader played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”) — that is discovered and promoted by music-loving magazine columnist Stanley Mitchell (Matthew Goode). John Goodman harnesses all of his basso profondo charms to turn in a slithering performance as a controlling American billionaire. The sadfaced reclusive Lady Cremone, who helps put the Louis Lester Band on the map by way of her stellar contacts is played by Jacqueline Bisset.
“Dancing on the Edge” doesn’t just have music on its mind — thematically, it covers everything from the evolution of music reporting and the looming threat of fascism to the dark power of the secret order of the Freemasons. As for the part early on when the Louis Lester Band performs for the Prince ofWales and his even more freewheeling younger brother George, both playboys and tastemakers, Poliakoff says it was lifted almost directly from a passage in jazz great Duke Ellington’s memoirs. In it, Ellington and his band, invited to perform at a private party for a press baron, find one of the guests — the Prince of Wales— deciding to sit in on drums. “
He wouldn’t mix with the other guests,” says Poliakoff, adding that the moment allowed him to explore the early days of celebrity obsession and a charismatic royal’s ability to dictate fashion. “The Prince of Wales was at the center of style because he was one of the biggest celebrities around. The power of royalty doesn’t exist anymore. Diana was the last exponent of that in a British setting.”
Besides mining Ellington’s biography, Poliakoff studied the history of American jazz greats and pored over Ken Burns’ documentary miniseries “Jazz.” But because Poliakoff’s parents grew up in the 1930s, he also drew from personal history.
“That was their heyday,” he says. “I had actually heard stories around the dining room table when I was very small about this period. So I thought I had a little window to open into the past both through my parents and through my research.”
In the series, Lester and his orchestra go fromdank basement performances to entertaining on a posh estate to a regular gig at the swanky Imperial Hotel. US viewers should be forewarned that Poliakoff— who wrote and directed every episode—believes in letting things unfold slowly.
“It starts at a pace that’s not very American,” says Bisset, whose character is reportedly modeled on Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, the Rothschild who became a benefactor of Thelonious Monk. “It takes its time and a lot of the details are rather interesting. I think an awful lot of people are so used to a story that goes bing, bing, bing.”
One thing that no one could have predicted — not Poliakoff nor Starz, nor the BBC who originally aired “Dancing” in the UK early this year — is the bonus of having a leading man on a high-profile winning streak. “Utterly commanding” was how Ejiofor’s turn as Patrice Lumumba in the Joe Wright-directed play “A Season in the Congo” at London’s Young Vic was described, and Oscar talk began as soon as “12 Years a Slave” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Goode, who plays journalist Stanley Mitchell with the exact right combination of smarts and cunning, loved Ejiofor’s unflappability. “Nothing really fazes Chiwetel,” says Goode, whose Stanley ends up forming a bond with Ejiofor’s Louis Lester. “He’s full of amazing anecdotes and jokes, he’s very light. Then suddenly — wham — he starts acting and you think, ‘Oh, God. This guy’s amazing.’ ”
It’s easy to see how some might think of “Dancing” as a quick fix for those “Downton Abbey” fans who need something to hold them over until Julian Fellowes’ British period drama returns in early January. Both have elegant costumes, grand locations, haves and have-nots. But they also share something else: A subplot of “Downton”’s new season has Violet’s (Maggie Smith) flapper niece Lady Rose (Lily James) in an interracial romance with a dashing African-American jazz singer (Gary Carr). Does Poliakoff think it’s as coincidence?
“We were made and finished before the [fourth season of ‘Downton’] was even conceived,” says Poliakoff. “I know Julian, so I take that as the sincerest form of flattery.”