Sometimes there appears on television programs so misguided in their conception that you wonder how and why commissioning editors accepted them.
The idea for DANCING IN THE BLITZ is a good one: presenters Len Goodman, Lucy Worsley and Jools Holland collaborate to recreate what life was like in Blackpool seventy years ago, when couples used to dance throughout the afternoon and evening at the Empress Ballroom as a way of enduring the privations wrought by the Blitz and its aftermath. There are several topics to be explored here: people's stoicism in times of great stress; the interaction between locals and American service personnel, especially in the latter years of the war; the power of music to promote community values; and the beginnings of what came to be known as the Hit Parade in postwar Britain.
Instead Geoff Wonfor's production opts for a series of re-enactments involving ordinary people from that period who are still alive, plus modern-day couples performing the hit dances of the wartime era. Lucy Worsley dresses up as a ATS girl to try and invest the material with some historical realism, but only succeeds in looking like a well- fed woman pretending to be involved in World War II. Goodman contributes some historical commentary, but to little effect.
Although Blackpool received its fair share of attention, no one bothered to point out that Hitler had told the Luftwaffe to treat the seaside town lightly, as he wanted to use the resort as his personal playground. The Führer planned to watch his triumphant troops goose-stepping down the seafront's Golden Mile before unfurling the swastika flag on top of Blackpool Tower. The idea might have made little military sense, but it fueled the Führer's sense of self-aggrandizement.
In light of such knowledge, it made equally little sense to make a documentary about Dancing in the Blitz in Blackpool. It would have been more suggestive to switch the focus of attention to Manchester, a city that was particularly badly hit during 1941. But then, of course, the filmmakers might not have had the chance to show off the towering Empress Ballroom, the site of several episodes of STRICTLY COME DANCING.
