Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
He is a ballroom dancer and head judge of Strictly Come Dancing.
On the island
Eight records
Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds
I think this first track is a track that everyone should wake up to because it makes you feel great. And I remember as a kid, I used to go to the cinema all the time, and I loved all the musicals. And Singin' in the Rain was one of my absolute favourites.
Pencil Full of LeadFavourite
I kept hearing this fantastic music, which happened to be a quick step as well. And they kept practising it and playing it over. And it was a fantastic and it's I thought he must be Italian, but he's not, he's a Scottish guy, Paolo Nuttini, pencil full of lead. It's just fabulous.
He used to play all his favourites from the war and before the war, and he used to love the Mills brothers. Uh they're only backing his guitar and everything else you hear is just them making the noise with their mouths. And it's just happy, happy music.
When I danced and competed, there were two main orchestras. For Borham it was Victor Silvester, and for Latin American it was Edmundo Ross. And you know, I read very recently he's still alive and he lives in Spain and he w was a hundred years old. So dear old Edmundo Ross, it's a great cha cha cha, and I can see myself on the beach, holding a couple of cocoa nuts, dancing the cha-cha.
One of the iconic numbers from strictly come dancing was Chris Hollins, who who wasn't particularly the best dancer. However, he did a Chelston that just knocked everyone's socks off.
I got into jazz. And one of my favourites was Dave Brubeck and Take Five. I loved it and I couldn't work out why I loved it. And of course eventually I realized that it's in five four timing, which is a timing that as dancers you never really use.
As I lay there, I want to be remember all my mates and all the places I've lived, and so on. And there's nothing better than In My Life by the Beetles, so I'd like that, please.
Harry Belafonte and Irving Burgie
I thought ever I am on the island. And I'm the king of this island. I am the master of all I survey. And I'm going to have Harry Belafonte, who I used to love.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:08Did you worry that television, primetime, BBC One were gonna turn [ballroom dancing] into a little bit of a joke, something to laugh at?
Well, that was my first worry. I didn't want to be involved in something that was going to be a Mickey take of ballroom dancing because it's been my career. I think people's idea of ballroom dancing was from Heidi High that used to be on, and there was a mincey sort of a guy and a lady in a great big parachute of a dress. That's what people thought dance teachers were. And I think strictly helped to sort of give it a bit of credibility. I didn't think it would last.
Presenter asks
9:35What are your memories of the early years [in Bethnal Green]?
My early memories are of being round Bethnal Green in our little house there, my grandparents' house. Saturday nights my nan and and one of my uncles were great on the piano, just self-taught and having a sing song, and my mum used to teach me a little s You can roll a silver dollar down upon the ground and I'd be sitting there on the f by the fireplace skipping my little bit. It was just wonderful memories.
Presenter asks
19:39Once you actually started dancing, did you love it?
I just loved it, and I think partly I loved it because I I was naturally good at it. So and you know, I've been I've been in a job that that has just been a pleasure to do anyway, so I've been so lucky.
The keepsakes
The book
An Anthology of British Poetry
I'm gonna go for poetry because I read a lot of poetry... I could memorize them and start to learn passages from them which would exercise my brain... I'm going to have a poetry book.
The luxury
a set of golf clubs and a huge supply of balls
I would just practise my bunker shots on the beach and chipping around.
Presenter asks
27:55What was your mum and dad's attitude to your relationship [with Leslie] breaking down, especially when you had a son?
Well, my mum was really devastated and she thought I was terrible to allow my son to, you know, go off with his mum and I, you know, made me not feel good. You do have a certain guilt feeling about these things and so I've sort of tried to make up for it all in in later life, you know, as much as I can.
Presenter asks
30:27What did you think when your fellow judge Arlene Phillips was unceremoniously dumped?
I was very disappointed. To be honest with you, I've never got to the and this honestly, I'm telling you everything the truth. I don't mind if anything happens if it's deserved, but uh you know, I d I didn't see how that was she was deserving of being given the elbow.
Presenter asks
31:27If [fame] had happened to you when you were thirty, don't you think you could have had a great big sparkling forty year career on the television?
If it had happened when I was thirty, I'd have been one of these people that would be seen rolling out of nightclubs drunk. with a couple of dolly birds on my arms and all. It would have been awful, really. You know, I got the pilot on my sixtieth birthday, and I think it was the perfect age because I was sensible by then. My feet were planted firmly on the ground. Listen, things happen when they should happen, and I think that happened just right.
“I turn up on a Saturday night. I just say keep your head up, cock your leg up higher and uh you know and and they pay me for it. It's just a lovely job, it's the best job.”
“I'm just happy who I am doing what I'm doing. And I hopefully, and I always ask people who've known me, have I changed? And and they say no. And I d the trouble is everybody else has changed around me. I am just the same. I'm old Lane Goodman, a dance teacher from Dartford.”
“Listen, if you don't have any bad times you can't appreciate the good ones.”
“That's my biggest, biggest regret is that my mum and dad would have been so proud and so happy to see their little Lenny boy on T V. They would have loved it. But they saw me dance, they used to come to the Albert Hall and see me and this, that, and the other. Kirstie, listen, I am one of the luckiest people on this earth.”