User Reviews

I'm not a fan of dance, nor a fan of children dressing like adults with Miss World strength make-up, but underneath the lipstick, glitter and fancy footwork are some really engaging, funny children who are dedicated to a sport that requires talent, money and almost all their free time.

It's easy to look at these kids as freaky because they're doings something different but that's a cheap shot. Better doing what they are than becoming a jnr hoodie or a obese couch potato. The parents on the other hand don't come out smelling of roses - their ambition can at times seem pushy.

Sure they want the best for their kids but sometimes what the kids want seems the last thing on their mind.

I think the film-maker treads a careful path. They obviously have a bond with the children and don't want to betray that by destroying the parents - it seems this would have been easy to do, but they don't go too far.

After all the kids are only around nine or ten years old and despite all their faults the parents are not criminals.

A restrained, piece of old-school film-making, that let's doesn't scream judgement but let's the viewer make up their own mind.

Subtle but very entertaining.

Any obsessive activity involving children is ripe for examination simply because as an outsider it is interesting to see the parents involved and the effects on the children. However I was a bit concerned about this film as the world of child ballroom dancing is, well, all a bit wrong isn't it? The producers don't help the audience get over this impression by using the theme music from BBC's The Armstrongs as the background music at the start and throughout – The Armstrongs being a benchmark for "wrong" in reality television! We follow three young girls (Ellie, Tabitha, Kelsey) as they all prepare for the impending British Championships. The film shows them talking about the dancing and in a way it is interesting in how you can hear the parents coming through when the children speak. Sadly though the film is not smart enough to get below the surface of these family dynamics and it never probes too deeply, seemingly happy just to float on the surface looking at the easy material. This is not too surprising but it is a bit disappointing as mostly we are just shown a world where children work hard in the dancing, encouraged and supported financially by parents eager to see their offspring succeed – which is probably the level of knowledge that most viewers had at the very start of the film.

Therefore the majority of the film is just this same angle while following the girls on their way to Blackpool (where, unsurprisingly, the Championship is held). This is vaguely interesting in a sort of depressing way because the characters are weird but not weird enough to be engaging so much as a bit unnerving. Mason was my favourite of the lot of them as he constantly comes over like he is angled for the hosting job on the kiddie version of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy". The rest of the characters are still vaguely interesting but not what the film needed – really it either needed to go deeper with them (which it doesn't) or have the type of characters that fans of Christopher Guest would have (which it doesn't).

Overall then a simple documentary which relies on an audience happy to just wander into a slightly odd world for an hour and walk out the other side not having learnt a great deal. With neither enough character to be funny nor sharp enough to be of real value, this is TV filler that makes for light entertainment but nothing more.