All Balls and Glitter (28 page)

So we greeted each other with a kiss and a ‘How are you, darling?’ Then we had a drink together and it was all fine.

In fact, I like him as a person very much. During the show, it was hard for both of us to differentiate between criticism of his dancing and a personal attack.

Of course, you could argue that the judges’ comments
are
an attack on the celebrities’ personalities because dancing is informed by personality. If someone is not confident, or is obstructed in some other way, it’s so crystal clear, especially to the four of us who have been watching professional dancing all our lives.

At the time, Julian did say breezily, ‘It’s all theatre, love,’ and in a way I suppose that’s true, it is. Nevertheless, it was difficult for me to withstand his personal comments, being the butt of his every joke; and I guess it was difficult for him to take my criticism, especially publicly. I learned a great deal that season.

Strictly
certainly relaunched Julian, putting him firmly in the public eye. People had a chance to be reminded of his great wit and dry humour, and warmly accepted him into their homes. He ended up presenting the National Lottery and many other shows.
SCD
works for the contestants in that way, and good luck to them.

Christmas 2004 saw a special version of the
Strictly
format
–
on ice.
Strictly Ice Dancing
was a one-off programme produced for the festive TV schedule. I thought it was a great idea and was asked to judge it from a dance perspective.

It was said by some that I knew nothing about skating. In fact, I can ice skate and I’m probably up to a grade six or seven – but I would agree that my proficiency is nowhere near polished enough to enable me to judge the skill, by any stretch of the imagination. I certainly couldn’t get up and do it any better than the contestants. Consequently, I limited my feedback to the dance aspect and the top line. It was, after all, a dance contest on ice. Like figure skating, you still need to train in ballet and ballroom to enhance your upper body movement. The routines are generally devised with a choreographer first, and then the ice skater works out a way to put those steps on to the ice. Yet it’s always the body from the knee upwards that people admire, not the blades below.

Everyone involved expected me to be vile, but I couldn’t be nasty about people skating because I didn’t know anything about that. Nevertheless, backstage, as soon as I walked in, the fear of God was put into everybody. In make-up, the contestants were all saying, ‘Please be kind.’ Some of them just froze in terror. They all thought I was going to slag them off, but I think I was – and am – quite generous.

I still managed to upset Carol Smillie, though. I didn’t like much about her performance at all, except her gorgeous beaming smile.

David Seaman won it. He was phenomenal. I went backstage to meet him and he was so tall in his skates, even I was craning my neck. It truly was a wonderful show. It looked beautiful and the people you least expected skated well. Then ITV copied it!

I spent Christmas with Lloyd and my family in Australia. It was lovely to see them all again, and my long-suffering sister Sue helped me with my latest project – writing my first book. It was called
Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing
. I’d been approached to write such a volume a few times and said no, but then I thought it might do me good. So I told the publisher, ‘I’ll write three chapters and if you like them, I’ll finish the rest.’

I drafted some sample text in Australia and decided to test the first chapter on Sue.

‘Read this and then see if you can dance,’ I instructed, but she got all confused. Most books on dancing are baffling; you require a PhD to understand
The Ballroom Manual
.

So I rewrote it, and boy, did I struggle. I threw the manuscript out three times: I scattered it all over my bedroom once; composed a second draft and ripped it up; and deleted a third entirely when my Mac went down. After that, I wanted to give up.

I had absolutely no experience of writing a book. What I knew for certain was that the content should be described in layman’s terms. I’m not Len Goodman, I’m not from the world of ballroom: I needed to understand it just as much as the reader did. My knowledge of dance is wide, if not deep – I have studied all kinds of movement. Rather than being a specialist in one field, I’ve worked in many, so I recognized the importance of making the book accessible. I wanted to explain the simple basic steps that I had learned as a kid, without patronizing the reader, so that people could pick up the book and actually learn to dance. The book wasn’t intended to replace lessons, but to be something that would arm people with a useful foundation before they went to a proper teacher.

In fact, the book was a project I’d long wanted to do for myself, to overcome the issues I had with ballroom and Latin. There are so many versions around the world, I can’t tell you. Everyone has a different opinion about the intricacies of the sport, whether that heel lead was correct, and so on. The rules and regulations are so varied that researching the text became a horrific experience, but it did allow me to get to grips with all the differences between the Australian, American, UK and International rules.

I also turned to Len and his lovely partner Sue for help. I danced a lot with Sue to get things clear in my mind and body. She’s a qualified teacher of the Imperial Society of Teachers of
Dancing (ISTD) and runs a dance school with Len, and she was wonderful. She helped me enormously. Initially, I didn’t want anyone to know because I thought it would undermine my judgement on
Strictly
. But in truth, writing the book, and learning from Sue, has enabled me to be a fairer judge, both on the technical side of things and on the emotional performance.

Just as well. Some of the dancers, such as Erin Boag, had begun to challenge me on matters of technique. However, despite my improved knowledge, I’m sure my altercations with the professionals will continue – particularly as they fight even amongst themselves about the intricate technicalities. You only have to look at the film
Strictly Ballroom
to see that there is a wide range of variants.

There have been arguments in dance for centuries about notation and the way things should be done; and not only in the ballroom and Latin world, either, but in every dance discipline. I think it’s safe to say that there probably always will be.

M
y next TV challenge was taking on the role of judge on
Comic Relief Does Fame Academy
, in spring 2005
.
My career in the West End provided ideal grounding for the post. Unfortunately, nobody told the audience that.

There was a lot of bitching on that programme, with people – both viewers and those in the team – saying, ‘What the hell does he know about singing?’ Having only seen me on
Strictly
commenting on dance, no one knew what my qualifications were, largely because there was no VT introduction (a pre-recorded section shown on a live show) to explain.

As a director and choreographer, I evaluate the talents of around 6,000 people a year; and I studied music for almost a decade, so I know a G sharp from a B flat. I assessed the
Fame Academy
acts as I would any West End audition.
I
knew that I was qualified to judge the show, but, when I joined the programme, the audience and the vocal coaches, David and Carrie Grant, didn’t. They were always putting me down and saying, ‘What would you know about this?’ which drove me nuts.

I’d been told to talk about the dance and movement, but I thought to myself, ‘Hang on, most of the time the acts are standing at a microphone, so I’m not here to discuss just the dance aspect of the performance, am I? Why have they got me on here?’ I then told the producers that I needed to comment on entertainment
value and vocals as well, and movement only if it was required, which of course is what I did.

In the end, I felt I had to defend myself on VT. I recorded a slot, where I said, ‘I audition thousands of people every year. I’m a director and choreographer, which doesn’t mean I only look after dance. Most of the shows I work on are musicals or operas, so I need singers too.’

However, it wasn’t until David and Carrie challenged me to sing on Claudia Winkleman’s BBC3 tie-in show that people knew that I could actually hold a tune myself. I will always accept a challenge, even if I fail miserably, so I went for it. I sang ‘I Am What I Am’. Even Carrie had to admit that I had good vocals.

Eventually, I found my place – but then David and Carrie were reduced to calling me Mr Orange, in supposed defence of the celebs, which was pathetic. I’d recently been to Australia for Christmas, so, yes, I was very, very tanned and I had make-up to match it. On telly, I looked really orange, but that’s beside the point.

David and Carrie would often come up to me after
Fame Academy
to say, ‘We think the banter on stage is really good.’ And I have to agree, it’s very interesting for the audience to hear different opinions. But when slanging matches occur, I generally pull out of them unless I have something profound to say, or disagree entirely and feel the need to make my point clear.

We had a lot of on-screen arguments, but that was fair enough. They were defending people that they were coaching so, of course, they would say I was wrong, because it was their teaching skills on the line. There was a lot more at stake for them.

The jokes and jibes continued to flow. Once, David said something like, ‘The future’s bright. The future’s not orange.’ Then, when I went out on the street, everyone was calling me Mr Orange. People would walk behind me saying, ‘Can you smell oranges?’ It was playground stuff and totally bizarre. I can take a
joke and am the first person to laugh at myself, but that just seemed unnecessary.

What I love about
Fame Academy
is that the celebrities come on and act, sing and dance – it’s probably closer to my world than judging ballroom is, oddly enough.

In the 2005 show, the celebrities were revolting – in the rebellious sense of the word, of course. Nick Knowles became the spokesperson, saying I was too rude and that I should be reined in. He said they thought it was disgusting that they were all being spoken to so bluntly and that I was making contestants cry because of my comments on their voices. But if their voice sucks, and they’re out of tune, I’m going to say that. I was only telling them what was wrong with their performances, but they didn’t want to hear it.

My fellow
Fame Academy
judge Richard Parks somehow seems to get away with the most personal insults, largely because he does it more for effect. In comparison, I think that when I make a comment, I try to hit the nail on the head and get right to the heart of the problem, which can sometimes be a little too frank for people’s liking.

Richard always tells the audience about the song, for example when it was written, who produced it, or whatever, and then reveals whether he loves the performance or hates it. Our colleague, Lesley Garrett, who completes the panel, is a bit of a fence sitter, though she’ll always say if there’s a problem with the vocals, but in a nice, encouraging way, which is good. I try to be honest and true to myself. Sometimes, I guess, my comments might come out a little harshly or without feeling, but it’s not intentional.

On one occasion, I disagreed with Richard when he told one of the celebs, ‘You sang that brilliantly. I loved it.’ I was astonished and said, ‘That was completely out of tune, from the beginning to the middle and to the end.’

But the next night, Richard backtracked. ‘When I listened again
to the song you sang last night, it was completely out of tune. It was our monitoring system here. I couldn’t hear properly.’

I was glad to be blessed with good sound – and it did make me chuckle a little, because it meant I was right.

Actually, Richard Parks and I get on very well off-screen – I have even been to his kids’ school to make speeches and hand out awards and so on. Theirs is in fact not the only one; I make many visits to schools all around the country to promote education. I have also become an ambassador for a charity called Teach First, which addresses educational disadvantage by transforming exceptional graduates into effective and inspirational teachers.

The same year I took on
Fame Academy
for the first time, I was asked to stage and choreograph
Once Upon a Time … The Life of Hans Christian Andersen
for the 200th anniversary of the great man’s birth. The concert was to be staged in Denmark in the 48,000-seater Parken Stadium in Copenhagen on 2 April 2005, and it would be televised, live, around the world.

The job was a real coup because I got to work with Olivia Newton-John, Roger Moore and the wonderful Tina Turner. I studied all Andersen’s poems and books, and then tied them together to create a representative show. It was huge fun being able to employ all these strange characters for the chorus, like dancers who were really tall or absolutely tiny, or on the heavy side and with faces full of character. Normally, you have to cast dancers who are similar looking, and that usually means slim and gorgeous. For this, I had to find rat characters, fairies, goblins and giants, which made a refreshing change.

For the design, I worked with my über-creative friend Christopher Woods. He was brilliant at making the costumes come to life. The whole project was fantastical, which is right up Christopher’s street. I love doing pieces like that as well because they are rare opportunities in the theatre.

It was a massive spectacle, with Olivia Newton-John singing and presenting, some arty storytelling sequences and then 400
kids from various Danish schools on stage in the finale. Directing hundreds of children from the ages of five to thirteen – who speak only Danish – was a bit of a challenge, while simply trying to organize them, along with their chaperones, was a nightmare. But they were good kids. They had all learned the song ‘The Snow Queen’ at their schools and they sang it beautifully on the night.