When Darcey followed in Fred Astaire’s footsteps
Plenty of worse things happened in 2017, but may I stick the La La Land backlash on the list? It was driven by an ornery refusal to submit to hoopla. Having got that off my chest, I will concede that the film owed an unpayable debt to the past, above all to Fred Astaire. The proof was submitted in Darcey Bussell: Looking for Fred Astaire (BBC One).
On a grim foggy day, Bussell schlepped up to the famous spot where Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone fell in love through the medium of tap. There she met the film’s choreographer Mandy Miller, who explained that the whole routine was a straight lift from Top Hat. “We watched that thing 600 times,” she unblushingly confessed.
This was an amiable tribute to Hollywood’s greatest ever hoofer, the modest star with liquid limbs and trampoline toes. Much as she did with Margot Fonteyn this time last year, Bussell crammed the story of a great life into an hour.
There was more to look at than listen to. Bussell, bless her, is a lovely presence who can look rapt interviewing quite a boring brewery historian. She’s no digger, though. In Omaha, Nebraska, she was unable to supply proof that the young Fred Austerlitz grew so familiar with the railroad’s rhythmic chug that it underpinned his choreography.
“This fabulous career nearly didn’t happen,” she said at the top. “That’s what interests me.” It can’t have interested her that much, or she might have explored the default-setting weirdness of Astaire’s 30 years partnering his older sister Adele. She was a bit of a goer who forgot to wear knickers. “Whoops,” she once said, “somebody’s just seen the ace of spades.” We never found out anything as intimate about her brother.
There was a good section on the technique Astaire learnt from Africanamerican dancers at the Cotton Club in what Bussell insisted on calling “Noo” York. The astounding synergy between Astaire and Ginger Rogers was lavishly illustrated. Quite why she drove him round the twist was never fully revealed. But they were so dazzlingly good that they’d probably have been voted off Strictly Come Dancing in week seven.
The worry, as one uncorked Joanna & Jennifer: Absolutely Champers (BBC Two), was that its stars would be nothing like as fizzy without a script. “We’re not Eddy and Patsy,” Joanna Lumley said warily as she and Jennifer Saunders tucked into a flute of bubbles at St Pancras International before Eurostarring off to explore the region that gave the drink its name.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Abfab, this reunion tour mainly consisted of corpsing as the two ladies caused each other’s sides to split. One of the running jokes was that Saunders can’t speak French and couldn’t match Lumley’s pronunciation of, say, Reims. Lumley was the one with the tasting nose. “Smells of my old convent corridors,” she said, sniffing a vintage, meaning it as a compliment. Saunders, who doesn’t have a serious bone in her body, brilliantly noticed the first word carved on Dom Pérignon’s ledger stone was “hic”.
At times, you felt their hearts weren’t really committed to the transactional task of fronting a factual entertainment. They visited one champagne manufacturer of surpassing pretentiousness who stores his bottles on the sea floor. Normally, Saunders would skewer such absurdity. Unable to scoff openly, she confined herself to climbing inside his ridiculous gold barrel while its owner grinned politely. Later, on the voiceover, she read out the press release – “they go beyond organic to a system that’s called biodynamic” – in a strikingly bored voice.
Here and there, Lumley mused on the quandary of ageing and if or when to stop being blonde, and a more searching film edged in from the wings. But this was mainly a fine and sparkling hour of fun. Only once did the mood threaten to turn when they descended on Bollinger – or Bollywood, as they called it – wellspring of Patsy and Eddy’s preferred liquid sustenance.
“Patsy and Eddy live on in us and our friendship,” Lumley volunteered, tiptoeing towards sentimentality at their last-night dinner. “Don’t get cheesy,” warned Saunders, her alarm system instantly activated. This documentary, with Bolly-related clips from Abfab itself, was neither cheesy nor meaty, but still tasty.
Darcey Bussell: Looking for Fred Astaire ★★★
Joanna & Jennifer: Absolutely Champers ★★★