Whether it’s coincidence or just dumb luck, the timing gods are smiling on Staꦉrz this weekend.
I say that because the star of its new five-episode series, “Dancing On the Edge,” is Chiwetel Ejiofor —who also happens to star in the big-screen movie “12 Years a Slave,” which has rec🧸eived rave reviews and isꦓ already generating Oscar buzz.
If you’re a nich𓆏e cable network like Starz, this type of publicity is a gift — so you hope your new series will reap the buzzy benefits of its big-screen alter-ego.
Well . . . while “Dancing On the Edge” featꦅures what should be a compelling story, acted by a top-notch cast underscored by a terrific jazz soundtrack, it’s not quite as riveting as I expected.
That’s not to♉ say it’s a disappointment. It isn’t. It’s just that “Dancing” moves a bit slowly and takes a while to get going — a hindrance if you’ve only got five episodes to tell your story to an audience with a short attention span.
The series opens in 1933 London and quickly flashes back 18 months. Louis Lester (Ejiofor) and his eponymously named jazz band are treading water in C-list clubs in England, making enough money to keep afloat but squeaking 💧by professionally.
Managed by the hot-tempered Wesley (Aryion Bakare), the band is obviously talented but is saddled with the sociological baggage of being African-American in a business run by whites — catering to a whit﷽e audience not so tolerant of the “colored” performers. Louis and his band — not unlike their African- American US counterparts — are banned from “mixing” with the customers, can’t enter through the front door of wherever they perform (back or side entrance, please) and are relegated to segregated dressing rooms.
A lot of that changes when music journalist Stanley Mitc😼hell (Matthew Goode) hears Lester’s band and, impressed, gets them booked into London’s swanky Imperial Hotel. Before long, the word is out: these guys are good — really good — and when Lester hires female singers Jessie (Angel Coulby) and Carla (Wunmi Mosaku), the Louis Lester Band takes off (with a royal assist from two enthusiastic fans — Prince George and his brother, the Prince of Wales).
Not everything is peachy keen, though; there’s a creepy American millionaire named Masterson (John Goodman) who b🥃efriends the band and becomes a patron. But he’s got a dark side (he obviously beats his wafer-thin girlfriend) and you just know there are other skeletons hanging in his closet. And Wesley — who claims he wa🍌s born in Wales and moved to Chicago as a youngster — is in danger of being deported back to the US on charges he raped a white woman.
That’s the tip of the “Dancing On the Edge” iceberg. The performances here are all good. Ejiofor’s Lester cuts a dashing figure (he’s the band’s piano p𒈔layer) but you can feel his just-underthe- surface resentment at being treated as a second-class citizen, and his disgust and contempt at the condescension of his new white friends. He retains a (mostly) sunny facade and is pragmatic, yet walks a thin emotional line he’s in danger of crossing.
Goodman can play creepy about as good as anybody and Goode, as music ♏journalist Mitchell, is fine.
If only the show’s paci🥃ng matche❀d its zippy musical score.