I Could Have Danced, Danced, Danced All Night

BALLROOM DANCING is making a comeback. No, it’s true. Speak to anyone in the know and they will agree that the hippest new trend is not Salsa, aquatic yoga, vegetarian tai-chi, or aerobic capoeira – this winter, the truly hip are donning sequins, finding a partner and hitting the dance floor.

Up and down the country, town halls, empty churches and draughty annexes are being transformed as wannabe Fred and Gingers learn to strut their stuff. Still not convinced? On Saturday, millions are expected to tune into the second series of Strictly Come Dancing to watch a selection of our most popular celebrities waltz round a dance floor accompanied by professionals.

In fact, management at the Beeb is so enamoured with the success of the first series that it is launching an offshoot hosted by their prize signing, Graham Norton. Strictly Dance Fever is based on the original, but the twist is that instead of Carol Vorderman, Diarmuid Gavin or Esther Rantzen, the show will feature members of the public.

So what’s all the fuss about? Well, there was only one way to find out – I signed up for a lesson.

Ballroom dancing is something our parents’ generation did. My father won a gold medal for ballroom dancing back when “dinner dance” meant five pints at the bar before dragging the nearest girl – situated in a huddle of females at the other side of the room – for the last waltz. He says he enjoyed it, but I’m convinced that for most men, particularly the generation that grew up in post-war Britain, ballroom dancing was really a way of meeting girls.

As for me, anything to do with wiggling my body in time to music takes place in the privacy of my home, usually to the strains of Paul Weller and normally when my wife isn’t looking. No amount of dances, balls, ceilidhs and weddings can get me on the floor in public.

The first dance at my own wedding was an awe-inspiring display of how not to do it. Having gone to the trouble of organising a live jazz band for the night, and following a rather ostentatious introduction from my best man, we took to the floor – only to discover that neither of us had the faintest idea of what we were doing. It was, by all accounts, a pathetic sight.

No, I grew up in Berkshire, not Brazil. Apart from a few lessons at prep school from an over-enthusiastic headteacher I don’t dance. I don’t do the foxtrot, waltz, rumba, cha-cha-cha or the Paso Doble. At social events I talk and drink. That’s it. This lesson was going to be interesting.

LYNNE MILLAR does dance. She says she knew, from age two, that she’d grow up to become a dance instructor. She didn’t have to look far for inspiration – her parents were Scottish champions and she spent many hours watching them glide around the floor.

In 1989, she set up a dance school. From humble beginnings, Millar plied her trade, starting with lessons for children, then expanding to encompass the wider public. And she’s good at it. So much so that the original draughty rented halls have grown into the Lynne Millar Academy of Theatre Arts, proudly sited in superb premises in central Glasgow. If anyone can teach me how to ballroom dance, she can.

The studio is all polished oak floors, gentle uplifting lights and a first-class sound system. I’ve donned my best tuxedo, but despite the uniform, when the music starts and Millar reaches to take me by the hand, I feel ridiculously amateur, a true novice. But she’s a dab hand, and in the soothing way a pilot relaxes a nervous passenger Millar soon puts me at ease. We’re learning the cha-cha- cha, a dance that became popular in the mid-1950s as an offshoot to the mambo. It is, according to Millar, the easiest dance, ideal for beginners. It consists of three quick steps (triple-step or cha-cha- cha) and two slower steps on the beat. That doesn’t sound difficult but ten minutes in and – I’m embarrassed to say – I found it mind- bogglingly complicated.

As Millar took me through the paces – “Back, step, step step step, forward, back step, step, step” – I was reminded of my schooldays and hours square-bashing in Aldershot as my cadet force’s corporal yelled out endless incomprehensible foot movements. Like the army, I just wasn’t getting it. And the music was another thing. I had come expecting a bit of Glenn Miller, maybe some Cole Porter. What we got was contemporary to say the least, and loud, very loud. “I just can’t do it,” I complained. “I have no rhythm.”

“Possibly the greatest myth of all is that you need to have natural rhythm to be a good dancer,” Millar replies. “It certainly helps, but you can teach people rhythm just like you can teach them to dance. It’s about listening to the beat in the music: slow, slow, quick, quick slow. Now, if you come from a musical background obviously you are practiced in listening to the beat, but with practice it will come.”

And do you know what? It did. After half an hour of practice I asked Lynne to take me for a spin. “Just lead,” I said. “I’ll try and keep up.” So off we set. And then it happened, I’m not sure how to describe it, maybe it was because I was being led by one of the best dancers in the country, maybe all that practice had sunk in. Whatever the reason, I could dance! OK, I wasn’t Fred Astaire and I wasn’t going to wow the judges on Strictly Come Dancing, but I could move to the music, keep in time and – whisper it quietly – I was actually enjoying myself.

“Good for you,” cried Lynne. Can we try a twirl? We twirled. “Can we do it again?” We did it again. “Can we shuffle?” We shuffled. “Can we waltz?” We waltzed for the next 20 minutes. We spun, we tangoed, we did the dance James Bond does with Domino in Never Say Never Again. There was no stopping us. “See, you can do it,” she said.

I know it’s an awful cliche – but, there and then in a studio in Glasgow, I could have danced all night. Suddenly I knew what all the fuss was about and – like a true pro – it was at this point that Lynne brought our lesson to an end, leaving me gagging for more.

I’D SURVIVED MY FIRST hour, which Millar says is usually the hardest. “It’s all in the feet and unfortunately there is a certain amount of footwork one must master before one can begin to dance. But after that the jigsaw starts falling into place.”

Usually by the second week, with a bit of practice at home, couples are advanced enough to attempt some ambitious moves.

Millar says she’s definitely seen an increase in people coming for dance lessons since the first BBC series. “I actually think it will overtake Salsa in popularity. Whereas Salsa is seen as a trendy dance ballroom dancing appeals to everyone. We have a couple who are still dancing in their mid-seventies. Last week, we had a group of Chinese people who wanted to learn how to dance. It was slightly difficult as they had very broken English.”

Classes are inexpensive: a one-hour lesson is GBP 9. As Millar says, it’s a cheap night out – and a great way to meet girls. “We had one chap who came in who was very, very shy. He was hovering around the reception and when we asked him if we could help he said he was just looking. Obviously, there’s not much to see in the reception so we took him up to a studio and showed him what we do.

“Eventually he told us that when he was a teenager he had a terrible experience on a dance floor – some girl had humiliated him, which left him with an awful complex. It was ruling his life. He would go out but not drink so he could concentrate on not making a fool of himself on the dance floor. But he’s taken to it like a duck to water and has met a girl through one of his classes.”

While there are still more women than men turning up for classes, that trend is gradually changing. I’m not surprised – ballroom dancing is incredibly intimate. I can see why so many dance floor romances are born. No wonder my wife didn’t want me to go.

Certainly romance – and controversy – filled the air during the first series of Strictly Come Dancing. TV presenter Natasha Kaplinsky dumped lover Mike Barnard to team up with dance instructor, Brendan Cole, who’d in turn been dumped by his fiancee, Camilla Dallerup – said to be outraged by the pair’s blatant flirting. They went on to win the competition, but just this week news filtered out that the dancing duo had split. Why? Well the rumour-mill suggests Cole is spending too much time cosying up to his newest dance partner, Casualty’s Sarah Manners.

In a taxi heading home, humming to myself and going through the paces, I have to admit that I felt exhausted, though I’d only been dancing an hour. “I’m not surprised,” said the driver who, it transpires, is a regular dancer. “I took classes with my wife last year, used muscles I never thought I had.”

TWO YEARS AGO, I joined a smart gym with my then fiancee. We still go, but frankly, we’re getting a bit bored with clocking up miles on a treadmill. Millar suggested bringing my wife back for a lesson. So watch out Vorderman, Rantzen and Gavin, a few more lessons and we might just give you a run for your money.

* Strictly Come Dancing begins on 23 October at 8:10pm on BBC1. The Lynne Millar Academy of Theatre Arts, tel: 0141-332 6332