Puttin' On the Ritz

Last week: I had my first tap dance lesson.

St Helens Theatre Royal, 1980 give or take a year or two. My first ever stage performance. I had been attending ballet classes for some time but my enthusiasm was, alas, outweighed by my inaptitude (I think the dance teacher's exact words were 'baby elephant') and I was kindly coaxed in the direction of tap dance which was a little less delicate than the fairy princess stuff I had in mind (it was never going to work - I had flat feet and a skinhead for God's sake). Little Wooden Head from Pinocchio was the soundtrack to our loosely choreographed routine and weren't we all adorable in our pointy triangular cloth hats flitting across the stage? I even caused a ripple of delight through the audience when my little hat fell to the ground. Racked with decades of guilt, I now feel compelled to confess that I did this deliberately so that all eyes would centre on me (sorry Mum).

Forward 30 years or so to last week when I found myself on my bike heading over to the Ecole Martine Wolff for my first ever real tap dancing lesson. My two friends Vanessa and Maria were meeting me there and feelings wavered between high excitement and maybe just a little apprehension.

On paper, I should have everything going for me as a budding tap dancer: Tap dancing has it's roots in English Lancashire Clog Dancing which was performed by cotton mill workers and miners to emulate the sounds of the machinery. With Lancashire being very much my neck of the woods, I can vividly picture my charcoal-faced ancestors shaking a leg in the working men's clubs in between copious pints of ale after clocking off from a hard day down the pit. I've certainly inherited their taste for ale so why not their affinity for tap dancing? Tap is also widely considered as a form of music and its percussive element often draws comparison with drumming. My Dad and brother are both hugely talented drummers, so if genetics have treated me with the same kindness, I could well be the next Ginger Rogers in the making.

Not about to prematurely invest in expensive tap shoes, I was unsure what footwear would be the most appropriate. Vanessa had dropped by the class the week before for a trial session wearing flip-flops and advised me that this perhaps wasn't the best idea. There was another girl in attendance sporting 14-hole Dr Martin boots, so I didn't feel quite so bad in a pair of simple suedette slip-ons with a leather sole and low heel. Unfortunately, this was not the wisest choice either and I spent much of the lesson with my feet in an unnatural position, in an attempt to prevent the shoes from sliding off, which impeded me from producing the kind of nifty footwork that I had in mind.

Our teacher was delightful. She first taught us some basic warm-up moves with patience and encouragement. Unsuprisingly, I was the first student to be singled out for making more than a bit of a hash of the shuffle, but she paid individual attention to everybody until we all got it right. In just one hour we mastered Step, Touch, Stamp, Toe, Ball, Dig, Brush, Backbrush, Shuffle and Heel and then we put all these steps together to form a mini routine that we were then instructed to rehearse before our next lesson. The music was all in 8 time and most of it, right up my street: you don't get much groovier than Mancini's Pink Panther Theme and I'm always a sucker for Nina Simone's husky vocals and jazzy baroque piano, although I could have managed ok without any Michael Buble (but I guess there's no show without Punch).

Would I try it again?: I have signed up for 10 sessions and bought some rather snazzy tap shoes.

Some Useful Links:

• Don't try this at home: Vance's Fantastic Tap Dance Dictionary
• The Portable Tap Floor: Every pocket should have one