What’s it like ? An over-the-top, colourful, highly entertaining rom-com. Plot: Set in Australia, a young ballroom dancer shocks the local dance establishment by incorporating daring new moves, in a glitzy new outfit in a competition. Is he prepared to risk his ballroom career by developing a new style of dance ? Who will dance with him ? And why is his dad so quiet all the time ?
Comment: With a very witty script and amusing characters, the film sends up the foibles of the ballroom dancing scene while celebrating it and flying the flag for authentic heartfelt dance. Great acting performances all round.
Cultural Significance: A low budget film which became an iconic part of mainstream Australian and UK culture.
Interesting fact 1: The BBC tv programme ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ alludes to the film’s title. For our younger readers, a word of explanation: in the 1970s, the BBC had a ballroom dancing programme called Come Dancing, which was very proper and polite and regarded as pretty boring by most of the population - it was shown about 10.30pm on weekday evenings when only real aficionados would make the effort to watch. Then it was re-launched in the mid-2000s with a radical re-branding, as a glitzy popular programme with celebrities and intense competition – and BBC Saturday evening viewing was shaped for the next decade.
Most likely both the Australian film and the BBC programme reflect changes in the real world of ballroom dancing in recent decades.
Interesting fact 2: The film was part of the arrival of Australian popular culture in the UK in the late 1980s and early 1990s, along with: Crocodile Dundee, Neighbours, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan; and the film Muriel’s Wedding which (a) was very much of the same character as Strictly Ballroom and (b) helped to kick-start the Abba revival because of its Abba soundtrack.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
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