CELLULOID MIKE SNUBBED

Council House

Birmingham dances to London’s tune – as usual

Film stardom has apparently eluded Mike Whitby, the Rhett Butler of Birmingham, yet again.

The Council House has in recent days been taken over by Dancing On The Edge, “an explosive new drama series for BBC Two set in the early 1930s following a black jazz band during times of extraordinary change”.

Very politically correct.

Written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff.
But no word of even a bit part for Celluloid Mike.

Surely the Andrews Sisters should have sorted something!

Gosh, how disappointing.

And naturally no mention of Birmingham to the dismay of all the council ‘extras’ desperately wandering about trying to flash eyelids and wiggle bums in the direction of the camera.

It all takes place in London despite being filmed in a 1930s hotel, otherwise the Council House, with the ballroom being that in the Grand Hotel.

A bit like the brazenly ‘non-Birmingham’ Hustle.

Stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (Children Of Men, The Shadow Line, American Gangster) and Matthew Goode (Watchmen, Leap Year, A Single Man).

Being a non-film buff I have heard of neither of them.

The five-part series also has Jacqueline Bisset (Bullitt, The Deep) – heard of her.

Also Janet Montgomery (Black Swan, HBO’s Entourage), Joanna Vanderham (The Runaway, Young Herriot), Tom Hughes (Cemetery Junction, Nick Slade in Silk), Angel Coulby (Guinevere in BBC’s Merlin), and Wunmi Mosaku (I Am Slave, The Body Farm) – no, complete blank..

But Caroline Quentin and Jane Asher – bring them on.

Didn’t the latter go out with that Beatle fellow once? 

The Louis Lester Band finds fame amongst the parties and performances of London’s upper class society.

The excited blurb reads: “Although many recoil at the performance of black musicians in polite society, the city’s more progressive socialites, including members of the Royal Household, take the band under their wing.

“But when they become entangled in this shadowy world, it results in a suspected murder. The walls begin to close in on Louis and the band.”

Oh dear.

Not a great result for a multi-cultural city such as Birmingham then even if in the 1930s there was probably hardly a black or brown face to be seen.

My mole in the Council House, somewhat overcome by ‘fame’, tells me: “There is an awful lot of posing going on.”
All got the Hollywood (that’s the one in south Birmingham) syndrome and turned into luvvies.

Janice Hadlow, Controller, BBC Two, swoons: "Stephen Poliakoff is a great distinctive talent and I'm thrilled to have his first long-form drama on BBC Two.”

If it was that good dear surely it would be on BBC One.