Dancing on the Edge

Episode 1

Episode 1

90 mins

London,1933:-Panic-stricken jazz band leader Louis Lester asks his friend, music journalist Stanley Mitchell, to help him flee the country. Eighteen months previously Louis and his band are playing in a jazz cellar, but Stanley sees their potential and persuades Nathan Schlesinger to book them at his Imperial Hotel. Whilst older patrons are shocked and walk out the band impresses bright young siblings Pamela and Julian Luscombe, their photographer friend Sarah and music agent Mr Donaldson, the latter negotiating a residency at the hotel and on whose advice Louis engages vocalists Carla and Jessie. He also arranges for the band to play at a garden party for the king's son Prince George where they meet an American millionaire, Mr Masterson, Julian's employer. Some nights later Julian calls Louis in to help him smuggle a young woman out of Masterson's hotel room after something--of which Louis is not told--has gone wrong. Wesley Holt, the band's manager, is deported back to Chicago on possibly trumped up charges but the band itself is in the ascendancy as the Prince of Wales comes to see them at the hotel and expresses his approval.