Arlene Phillips

Dame Arlene Phillips really has stories to last a lifetime! She’s worked with icons like Whitney Houston, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin, choreographed legendary West End & Broadway musicals and also created the iconic Hot Gossip dance troupe. The legendary choreographer joined us for a brilliant trip through her extraordinary career, we heard about a shy Whitney finding her confidence, teaching Elton to dance and how kind Freddie was on set. Arlene also took us back to her childhood in Manchester, how she started her dance training and her unexpected route into choreography that began with Ridley Scott, Miriam Margolyes, and a Dr Pepper advert! Of course we chatted Strictly, Starlight Express, Guys and Dolls and we hear her crazy food combo of bagels with pickles, strawberry jam and cream cheese! Thank you Arlene for such a gorgeous and fascinating afternoon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:22Jessie Ware?

  Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with Mum, looking fat and red.

• 2:26Speaker 05

  Do I look fat? Is my hair fluff because of the rain? It's not flat.

• 2:30Speaker 06

  But it's not as mushy.

• 2:32Jessie Ware?

  Oh, you've just shushed it and it's perfect.

• 2:34Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:35Jessie Ware?

  How are you, Mum?

• 2:36Speaker 05

  I'm absolutely thrilled and excited and so pleased we've got this guest on because she is a complete legend.

• 2:46Jessie Ware?

  She really is a legend.

• 2:47Speaker 05

  She's a dance iconic legend.

• 2:50Jessie Ware?

  She has choreographed...

• 2:53Speaker 05

  Robbie Williams.

• 2:54Jessie Ware?

  Whitney Houston.

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Whitney Houston. Aretha Franklin.

• 2:57Jessie Ware?

  Elton John.

• 2:58Speaker 05

  Elton John.

• 2:59Jessie Ware?

  Queen.

• 2:59Speaker 05

  Queen.

• 3:00Jessie Ware?

  She choreographed the musical Annie, the film version. Iconic dancers.

• 3:07Speaker 06

  With the divorce.

• 3:08Jessie Ware?

  She is not only prolific and formidable, she's still working. She did the Guys and Dolls production at the Bridge Theatre two years ago, which I saw, which was fantastic. We're talking about Arlene Phillips, who you may know from Strictly back in the day.

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Hot Gossip.

• 3:27Jessie Ware?

  I don't know who Hot Gossip are.

• 3:28Speaker 05

  Darling, you've missed out there.

• 3:30Jessie Ware?

  I mean, not only has she been on the screen, she's choreographed some of the most memorable iconic scenes in shows, music videos. I'm just need to know what it was like to work with Whitney Houston. She choreographed the Whitney "How Will I Know?" video and "I Want to Dance with Somebody." She did "I'm Still Standing" for Elton John. She, I mean, she's even...

• 3:52Speaker 05

  Not DJ.

• 3:53Jessie Ware?

  She's even done a bit of Riverdance.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  I know.

• 3:56Jessie Ware?

  It's about time we had another Dame on the podcast.

• 4:00Speaker 05

  But she's also a genuinely gorgeous person.

• 4:03Jessie Ware?

  You met Arlene somewhere.

• 4:04Speaker 05

  I met her at the Look Who's Cooking Dinner, the Leukemia Trust, which she has a big interest in because her own mum died of leukemia when she was quite young. And her story is really fascinating. But we're both Mancunians, Jess.

• 4:20Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I can't...

• 4:21Speaker 05

  From Press Switch.

• 4:22Jessie Ware?

  I can't wait to meet her and hear her stories about everyone and every dance and every bevel. I'm cooking today, I'm cooking from, let me get it, from...

• 4:34Speaker 05

  Simply2.

• 4:36Jessie Ware?

  Ottolenghi's Simple 2, it's his new cookbook. I went to the launch last week.

• 4:40Speaker 05

  Did you?

• 4:40Jessie Ware?

  Which was fab.

• 4:41Speaker 05

  What are you cooking, darling?

• 4:42Jessie Ware?

  I'm cooking quite a lot in it. But actually, it is pretty straightforward. I'm cooking cat's feta frittata because we've got Arlene coming over at 12. So that's just a really delicious frittata with a big block of feta, loads of dill, cumin seeds, a bit of Aleppo chili. I'm trying these delicious butter beans with erfa chili butter. I don't have erfa, so you can make a version of erfa, kind of.

• 5:09Speaker 05

  Erfa's milder, on the milder side.

• 5:11Jessie Ware?

  Yes, so I've put ancho and smoked paprika together. And I've got bold beans, of course. And then I've also done, this is quite unusual to be able to like do four Ottolenghi things. And that's not me being an overachiever, it just is quite simple.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  Did you have all the ingredients in?

• 5:28Jessie Ware?

  I mean, I had to do a couple of delivery. I actually had to deliver it from Ottolenghi's restaurant to get the Bieber Sal Cassi.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  Oh, I've always had Bieber.

• 5:38Jessie Ware?

  Oh, no, puiber. No, it's different.

• 5:41Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:42Jessie Ware?

  It's like peppers and anyway. I'm doing the double chocolate shortbreads with chili or without. I've only put a tiny bit of chili in, Mum.

• 5:49Speaker 05

  Good.

• 5:50Jessie Ware?

  Plenty, my kids will be happy.

• 5:52Speaker 05

  Jessie, it's already got marks on it, your cookbook.

• 5:54Jessie Ware?

  I know, I've really got involved.

• 5:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:56Jessie Ware?

  And then I'm doing sumac roasted strawberries. It's all quite straightforward, actually, but it's all delicious.

• 6:03Speaker 05

  Darling, I think that I went to this kind of dance class that my parents sent me to when I was probably between 10 and 12. And it was a dance class that you went to

• 6:14Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 6:14Speaker 05

  to learn how to do the waltz for bar mitzvahs and weddings. And I've got a feeling she might have gone to the same dance class as me.

• 6:22Jessie Ware?

  Surely you would have remembered Arlene Phillips.

• 6:24Speaker 05

  No, she's a bit older than me, Jess. Believe it or not, there are people that are slightly older than me. And I think that she might have gone to the same dance class to learn how to dance at bar mitzvahs and weddings.

• 6:37Jessie Ware?

  Dame Arlene Phillips coming up on Table Manners.

• 6:48Jessie Ware?

  Dame Arlene Phillips, thank you so much for coming over. We are so thrilled to have you. We've got so much to talk about because, well, your career is illustrious and just unbelievable. We were going through some things. Actually, Tully, who works on our team, used to work with you for a bit.

• 7:05Speaker 06

  Oh, he certainly did.

• 7:07Jessie Ware?

  And he showed us something that he did when he was a teenager and it was like a show reel. You've choreographed everybody, but like some of the greatest greats, from Whitney Houston to Elton John to Aretha Franklin, Queen, Freddie Mercury, Michael Flatley. I mean, selfishly, I just need to know about Whitney Houston for a moment.

• 7:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:28Jessie Ware?

  How was it working with her?

• 7:29Speaker 06

  It was incredible. And there's this kind of underlying story because when she did her first music video, "How Will I Know?", it kind of came straight off the back of "I Will Always Love You", when suddenly she found that the world kind of loved her.

• 7:46Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 7:46Speaker 06

  But she wasn't ready for it. So she was so shy. She was so shy. She was in the Winnebago most of the time and she would come out and I'd show her the choreography. I was told to make it straightforward, simple. And she has very long, narrow feet. And she hated her feet because she felt they were too big for her. So she didn't want any shots of a side angle for her feet. She didn't want them, you know, anyone to see. So everything was sort of choreographed so that she was always walking in the right direction for the camera, that she was always dancing, moving. And she was amazing.

• 8:29Speaker 06

  And then a few months later, when I went to New York to do "I Want to Dance with Somebody", and a really different Whitney, she realized the world loved her. She was, wanted to try everything, like I want choreography, I want me to make me move, I want to dance. And it was so different from the shyness of that first moment to Whitney being full-on Whitney.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Could she dance?

• 8:58Speaker 06

  She is a really good mover, really good. And once she gets dancing, you believe that she's doing the greatest piece of choreography in the world. Actually, it was the boys that surrounded her in the original video. But she, she just came to life and she has perfect lip sync. You would have no idea that she was not singing live. Everything about her was real. And she attacked the choreography and the more I gave her, the happier she was. And of course, that song has been all about dance ever since Whitney first sang it.

• 9:36Jessie Ware?

  I mean, we can, look, I'm good, we're going to go back into all so many different things. But let's start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? Who was around your dinner table and what were you eating?

• 9:47Speaker 06

  Okay, well, I grew up in North Manchester.

• 9:51Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 06

  Actually, a place called Hightown, which no longer exists. But it was on, off a street called Waterloo Road, where the famous thing about it, there was a shop called Titanic's.

• 10:04Jessie Ware?

  Of course. Oh my God, the deli?

• 10:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 10:06Jessie Ware?

  Of course. It's not there anymore.

• 10:07Speaker 06

  No, nothing is. That whole area where I lived is...

• 10:10Speaker 05

  Hightown was a lot of manufacturing.

• 10:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Handbags, clothing. It was where all the Jewish people had manufacturing.

• 10:19Jessie Ware?

  And you're Jewish?

• 10:20Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, so I grew up within this area that was very much um Jewish area. There was, you know, the bakers, the bagels, the.

• 10:33Speaker 05

  Titanic.

• 10:34Speaker 06

  Titanic, smoked salmon. And the thing about smoked salmon, we didn't grow up with very much money, but you could get this smoked salmon that was cut fine, but they also had salmon pieces.

• 10:46Speaker 05

  The bits.

• 10:47Speaker 06

  Which were the bits so you could scrape off the skin and eat. And and there was always, it was always there. So it's like everybody, no matter where they came from, could afford to eat the smoked salmon. Um and that, yeah, that's where I grew up. Well, you know it well.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 11:07Speaker 05

  I was wondering, Arlene, whether we, do you remember there was a dance class that you got sent to by your parents? So you could learn to dance at bar mitzvahs and weddings. And I used to go to this dance class and I wondered if you had gone to it too.

• 11:22Speaker 06

  No, no, my dance came from a different place, but I know the dance class.

• 11:30Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 11:31Speaker 06

  You men, everybody's talk, talk.

• 11:33Speaker 05

  Everyone was taught how to hold someone.

• 11:35Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 05

  Because you still did the waltz at bar mitzvahs and weddings, so you had to learn how to do it.

• 11:41Jessie Ware?

  Did you have a bar mitzvah?

• 11:43Speaker 06

  No, no, no. I lived in a kind of difficult situation of a father that really didn't own the religion. And my mother, again, was part of a religious community, but no, it didn't kind of feed down to us very much at all. Just kind of growing up was hard. You know, I wanted dance lessons. We didn't have money for dance lessons. It was a kind of life of not haves. Like, one of the girls that lived down the road had black patent shoes with a strap. And I think I must have dreamt of having that patent shoes for as long as I could remember, and I never did get them.

• 12:26Speaker 06

  We just had one pair of shoes and you wore them for school, for parties, whatever. So the thing that, you know, you would go to a formal dance class, you could do it. I I struggled. An uncle paid some. But I really struggled. All I wanted to do was dance.

• 12:45Jessie Ware?

  So where did you learn to dance?

• 12:48Speaker 06

  Eventually, an uncle decided to pay for my lessons. At first, we'd moved to Press Switch and there was a dance class close by, but in a church hall. And for me, it was never a proper dance class. Because in my books that I was getting from the library, there was always a studio that had ballet bars and this didn't. So I nagged and nagged and nagged till I went to a very, very big dance school on Deansgate, up eighty nine steps up to the studio at the top. And that's where I wanted to live, breathe, stay. It was my life.

• 13:27Jessie Ware?

  I love that. And um what were you eating round the dinner table, apart from the bits from Titanic? What's a memorable dish?

• 13:34Speaker 06

  My um memorable dish is my mum's chicken soup.

• 13:40Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 13:40Speaker 06

  It was so delicious. It had a sort of an earthiness to it, but it was so fulfilling. So, yes, mum was an amazing cook. And what's interesting, she left me all the recipes in the book. Um she got ill. We didn't know what it was, but it was leukaemia. And so she did know that it was bad. And so she wrote all the recipes out for me. And I've still got that book.

• 14:14Jessie Ware?

  How old were you when she got ill?

• 14:16Speaker 06

  Fifteen. Yeah, yeah. And it was like three months from knowing, you know, to passing away.

• 14:24Jessie Ware?

  I'm so sorry.

• 14:25Speaker 06

  And that was, it's it's absolutely life changing. I missed school to look after her. I never thought of myself as a carer.

• 14:34Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 14:34Speaker 06

  But actually, looking back, I missed school. So getting back to my school, I was at Manchester Central High in Whitfield Street. And it was a very state school, but very academic. And so when you fall behind, you kind of don't have the courage to make up that time. So I left um school early and managed to get Manchester County Council pay for me for a scholarship to the ballet school that I'd been training at to go full time. And that was, that was it. For me, life was made.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  But did you have more responsibility once your mum died at home? Yeah.

• 15:21Speaker 06

  I almost can't even go in into it. My dad got very ill because for him, this was devastating. He was kind of the outsider. He was a really lone wolf, if you like. So my mum was everything. And he got ill, blood clots in his arm and didn't really know how to function. So it's my older brother, Ian, and my younger sister Karen. We all worked out who was going to do what. He left school to earn some money. My younger sister was doing the cooking, the washing up. I was all round general help and dancing. I could not have survived without dance. Dance for me was about living.

• 16:05Speaker 06

  Everything else was too difficult to even contemplate.

• 16:09Speaker 05

  Was it a particular sort of dance? Was it ballet or modern dance or tap or flamenco? What?

• 16:15Speaker 06

  Started off with ballet.

• 16:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 06

  And wanted to be a ballerina and wanted to go to London and get a scholarship. But that fell away. There was no chance. So I taught ballet, um studied ballet for four years at my old dance school. And then Miss Tweedy, the teacher, asked me if I'd like to stay on and teach. And I thought, well, this is perfect. I can keep looking after my sister. I can make things work. You know, because I've got some money coming in. That she started at five pounds a week. Can you imagine? Five pounds a week was really important. So I was living this life of of teaching.

• 16:58Speaker 06

  And that was obviously about dancing. And then one day, Miss Tweedy said, I want you to go to London. There's a new dance school open in Covent Garden. And you don't have to pay for a whole term. You can go into any class and you can take any class you want. Go and take classes, go for a week. I'll pay all your expenses and then come back. And when the new term happens in August, you've brought new work because they did contemporary dance.

• 17:29Jessie Ware?

  Pineapple?

• 17:30Speaker 06

  No, it's pre pineapple. The Dance Centre on Floral Street was the place to go. And I did everything. I did modern jazz. I did lyrical jazz. I I did every style you could imagine and just worked and worked and worked. At the end of the week, I went in to a class that said, um, modern American jazz, Molly Malloy. And I thought, oh, that sounds nice for my last class. And then my life changed. I went into her class and it was so beautiful. It was a real combination of contemporary dance,

• 18:11Speaker 06

  classical dance and lyrical jazz. And every every move, it was like ballet, but it was more than. And at the end of the class, I'd fallen in love with this style of dance. And there was a table like this that everyone could sit around at the Dance Centre. When they'd finished class, there was a a jug of Kona coffee and everyone, the teacher was Molly Malloy was sitting around and everyone. And I thought, well, why not go and sit down with everyone? And she turned to me and she said, nobody has ever come into my class and just known what to do. Have you trained before? In in jazz? And I said, no, I haven't. Um basically, it's a classical base.

• 18:56Speaker 06

  She said, I'd like to offer you a scholarship. And I went, oh, I'd love it, but I can't. I've got to go back to Manchester. I've got family commitments.

• 19:05Jessie Ware?

  How old were you at this age?

• 19:06Speaker 06

  Twenty three.

• 19:07Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 19:07Speaker 06

  I was a grown up, proper grown up, time to make my own decisions. And she said, well, how, if you love the class so much, what would it take for you to move to London? I said, I couldn't. You know, I don't, I've got a job, I've got. And then she said, well, sometimes I think if you want something enough, there's a way to make it happen. And what do you think you would need if you came to London? I said, well, firstly, not going home, because if I did go home, I'd never I'd never come back. But also, I'd need a place to live, to earn some money. And then I could be here. And she said, well, there's a cafe across the road and I know they're looking for help.

• 19:52Speaker 06

  And I have a really good friend looking for someone to live in, help with the household stuff, help babysit his little son. And that person was Ridley Scott.

• 20:05Jessie Ware?

  Oh, my God. Your life, Arlene.

• 20:08Speaker 06

  And and that changed everything. So I told Miss Tweedy, I can't come back, but I will pay her back every penny. I talked to my family and they didn't understand. And I said, if I come home, even for a day, I will, I'll never leave again. And I will, I will take care from a distance. My sister was grown up now.

• 20:32Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 06

  And my my dad was much better and stronger.

• 20:37Jessie Ware?

  How did they react to?

• 20:39Speaker 06

  Not good.

• 20:40Jessie Ware?

  Oh.

• 20:40Speaker 06

  But and my brother, but all that changed when I truly got the chance to explain that I I couldn't walk away from this. It's everything I've dreamed of. And there I was with a place to live, um dance classes every day. Um and and then because Ridley was a director of TV commercials and he knew this girl was a dancer, he said, I've got a tiny little commercial I'm going to make. It's for Lion's made ice cream. I think it's very simple. We've got a milkmaid and a farmer.

• 21:21Speaker 06

  And, um, you know, if you could just do some little steps. I said, well, why not?

• 21:28Speaker 06

  I thought I can do some little steps. Funny enough, the milkmaid in the commercial was Miriam Margolyes.

• 21:35Speaker 06

  And you know, we just did a little, you know, dancy step and the farmer did a step and then a two people cow came along. So I made this commercial and I never thought of being a choreographer. Those words didn't come into it until four weeks later Ridley said, I've got a commercial being made here. It's an American product called Dr. Pepper. We didn't have Dr. Pepper in the UK and they did the biggest dance commercials for years. Dr. Pepper had big dance commercials. And he said, ask me if I would do a commercial for him, for Dr. Pepper. Well, I thought it'd be a bit like the other one.

• 22:15Speaker 06

  It wasn't. It was at Elstree. There were forty two dancers and I made this commercial with him. And so my career became a choreographer and that's where I had money to put my dance group together called Hot Gossip.

• 22:32Jessie Ware?

  Hot Gossip. Well, whilst I sort out the food, mum does want to talk about Hot Gossip. She's, because I, I'm, I'm, I'm.

• 22:40Speaker 06

  You don't know anything about them.

• 22:42Jessie Ware?

  I didn't, but I feel bad because I think I should know about them, but.

• 22:45Speaker 06

  No.

• 22:46Jessie Ware?

  But, but, but mum said they were the hottest thing.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Thing that you could possibly imagine.

• 22:52Jessie Ware?

  But I'm just gonna go and sort out.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  And you wore very little.

• 22:55Speaker 06

  Very little.

• 22:56Speaker 05

  Very little.

• 22:57Speaker 06

  Very little.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  And you had gorgeous girls.

• 22:59Speaker 06

  And male.

• 23:01Speaker 05

  And male.

• 23:01Speaker 06

  All, yes, all black mixed race, which was very unusual.

• 23:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 06

  But they were the dancers that weren't getting jobs at that time.

• 23:10Speaker 05

  So how many people were in Hot Gossip?

• 23:12Speaker 06

  There were nine.

• 23:13Speaker 05

  Nine.

• 23:14Speaker 06

  There were nine because we were offered, um, from a photograph, actually, of Hot Gossip to do a once a week gig at a club called Mon- Monkberry's in the West End. It was a small club, but everybody who was anybody from actors to the arts, to TV stars, everybody came to that club on German Street. It was a real seventies club and we danced there.

• 23:46Speaker 05

  But you were also on TV?

• 23:48Speaker 06

  Well, the TV happened actually after I'd had the group for a good couple of years.

• 23:54Speaker 05

  Really?

• 23:55Speaker 06

  And just doing our once a weeks. But then Ritz Magazine, which was a very, like a, a newspaper that came out once a month and again landed with all the beautiful people.

• 24:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:09Speaker 06

  And they had asked if they could take a photograph of Hot Gossip and Hot Gossip was on the cover. A director called David Mallett saw the photograph. He was about to make the Kenny Everett video show.

• 24:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:23Speaker 06

  And he wanted dancers and he said to his P A Jackie, get me Arlene Phillips, get me Hot Gossip and that's who's going to be on the show and, and she said, well, you've never seen them dance. He said, I don't care.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  They're hot. Yeah.

• 24:41Speaker 06

  I want the, this will make the Kenny Everett video show.

• 24:47Speaker 05

  But did you dance in the background of other people's videos as well as Hot Gossip? Or did you appear on Hot Top of the Pops or Ready Steady Go?

• 24:56Speaker 06

  We did. We, it was all after Kenny Everett video show. He was the one that broke the group for TV and not just in any ordinary way, but, but because, and it was for us lucky, we thought it would be a disaster. Um, Mary Whitehouse, a sort of.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  Hated you, yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 06

  So, yeah, I mean, she was.

• 25:24Speaker 05

  She was like a woman that complained about.

• 25:28Speaker 06

  Everything that was sexy.

• 25:30Speaker 05

  Sexy or modern.

• 25:31Speaker 06

  Yes. And, um, she was a.

• 25:34Speaker 05

  She hated pop culture.

• 25:36Speaker 06

  Self, self-appointed carer.

• 25:40Speaker 05

  Of people's morality, really, on TV. She was a bore.

• 25:45Speaker 06

  But, well, but because she complained.

• 25:49Speaker 05

  It got you more publicity.

• 25:50Speaker 06

  It, it, it went, literally, I'd say viral would be the word you use. It didn't exist there.

• 25:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:57Speaker 06

  But we were everywhere. We found ourselves after our first Kenny Everett video show, the front of every newspaper and they're still at home, all those newspapers. It was crazy how angry she was and how like a revelation.

• 26:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 06

  To the press, to the world of dance, because most dance on television prior to Hot Gossip was, I mean, really good dancers, but you always had a smile. It always had something.

• 26:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, you were on variety shows.

• 26:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, on a variety show. Whereas in the streets, discos were thriving.

• 26:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:35Speaker 06

  The whole, the whole freedom to be who you were was happening on the streets, but not on TV. And for me, it was like breaking those boundaries.

• 26:44Speaker 05

  It was the sixties.

• 26:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, it was late, very late sixties, early seventies. Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 05

  Was Flick Colby in Hot Gossip?

• 26:53Speaker 06

  No, she was in Pan's People.

• 26:55Speaker 05

  People. So those were your competitors?

• 26:58Speaker 06

  Those, well, we came in after them.

• 27:01Speaker 05

  Oh, you were after them.

• 27:02Speaker 06

  And then we kind of broke a barrier that they, they were lovely and they were sweet, but we broke a barrier on what we wanted to do.

• 27:16Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 27:16Speaker 06

  And that was, it was so different. There was nothing sweet about it. And they were all beautiful girls, but it didn't have the progression in a way that Hot Gossip had, where we were allowed to go into a film studio and every week had one whole day with phenomenal scenic designs to create what was pre-music video.

• 27:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:50Speaker 06

  But it was MTV hadn't started yet. So it was, we were making music and dance videos. We had a pop group in every, every week.

• 28:01Speaker 05

  And you were dancing with them.

• 28:03Speaker 06

  Yeah. And we had amazing scenic design.

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• 30:12Speaker 03

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• 30:48Jessie Ware?

  So I have got Ottolenghi's new cookbook, which is called Simple Two, Ottolenghi's Simple Two. And I, it's brunch time.

• 30:58Speaker 06

  I'm about to answer the same question. Is it really simple?

• 31:02Jessie Ware?

  It's Ottolenghi's Simple.

• 31:03Speaker 06

  Ottolenghi's Simple, yeah.

• 31:05Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, it's, you know, I definitely didn't have the right chili. And so I've had to improvise a bit. Earth chili I need to get because it seems to be in every dish that I made today. But we've got in the cookbook, cat's feta frittata, loads of spinach, so we should all look out for stuff in our teeth. Loads of dill and feta. These are like baked beans that have been done with a earth chili butter that's, and actually I didn't have preserved lemons, which I'm not mad about preserved lemon, so I kind of improvised a preserved lemon on the top. And then just a green salad.

• 31:38Speaker 06

  Right.

• 31:39Jessie Ware?

  And you put a wedge of lime with the frittata.

• 31:42Speaker 06

  Oh, nice.

• 31:42Jessie Ware?

  I can put some, do you want toast as well or not?

• 31:46Speaker 06

  No, I don't need, no, I'm fine, I'm really fine.

• 31:50Jessie Ware?

  But whilst, well, whilst I serve up.

• 31:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 31:54Jessie Ware?

  Can you start thinking about your last supper? You're going to a desert island.

• 31:59Speaker 06

  Oh, a desert island, I'm not gonna die, okay, okay.

• 32:03Jessie Ware?

  And you have a starter, a main, a pudding and a drink of choice.

• 32:09Speaker 06

  Aha.

• 32:10Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 32:11Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 32:12Speaker 05

  Where do I put the lemon, Jess?

• 32:13Jessie Ware?

  I think it's for the frittata.

• 32:15Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 32:16Jessie Ware?

  Your choreography is just some of the most memorable, I mean, Annie. How old were you when you did Annie?

• 32:26Speaker 06

  Um, I always have to work it back to my, oh, Alana, my oldest daughter, who came everywhere with me, travelling, you know, sort of travelling the world. Until I had my second daughter Abby and then getting, she came quite, you know, not, not for as many years as Alana did, but they both came for trips. So it was nineteen eighty-three, so forty, no, thirty something. And it was just the most incredible experience.

• 33:03Jessie Ware?

  I mean, you still work very, very hard. You're about to go to Manchester to do a Sundime musical. Is it Sundime? Yeah. And I saw your production of Guys and Dolls.

• 33:16Speaker 06

  Did you enjoy it?

• 33:16Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, I loved it. It was brilliant. It was, it felt really fresh, actually, with the way that the direction and all of that. It was brilliant. So, I mean.

• 33:26Speaker 06

  I loved it. I loved, I loved it. I loved the effect it had on people. The effect it had on people was quite extraordinary. People with depression. People seemed to be able to find, like, and everything's okay. Having watched Guys and Dolls, finding their spirits lifted. And it seemed to have that, you know, talking to the people that went sixty-two times, you know, sixty-eight times. People came over and over again because of what they found. And being able to be close to it, somehow you feel like you're part of it because we had all of the immersive and the standing.

• 34:09Speaker 06

  And it really did strike a chord with me on our closing night with some of the people who had depression and life changed after seeing Guys and Dolls. And knowing they could always afford a ticket to go and stand when they needed help. I mean, you could, just sort of help create that with, you know, the amazing team on that show. And you realise that it helps change, people change their lives. So it's very special to me, that show.

• 34:44Jessie Ware?

  Have you had time to think about your last supper?

• 34:46Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 34:47Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 34:48Speaker 06

  Yes, I have.

• 34:49Jessie Ware?

  Come on then.

• 34:50Speaker 06

  I would definitely go with sushi.

• 34:52Speaker 05

  Okay, as a starter?

• 34:54Speaker 06

  As a starter, yes, because I love it, but I know what I want for my main course. So, and that, you know.

• 35:02Speaker 05

  You don't want to fill up too quickly.

• 35:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't want, and, and also.

• 35:07Jessie Ware?

  Can I take that?

• 35:08Speaker 06

  Yes, yes, thank you. Yeah. Um, I like, I like rhythm. I like sort of something that leads to something and people say, oh, no, you can't do that because you've just had your fish. Or you can't, I like rhythm in my life.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Sushi?

• 35:25Speaker 06

  My favourite sushi was, I was in New York recently and they did the most incredible sushi. Like there was this heart shaped sushi and the outside was seaweed. And inside it had tuna and salmon. And it was in this heart and it was just, the way they just slightly softened the tuna and the salmon. It was like eating the heart of heaven.

• 35:55Speaker 05

  Oh, the heart of heaven.

• 35:57Speaker 06

  I loved it and I could see eat any sushi, any day, any time.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  And what do you drink when you're having sushi?

• 36:05Speaker 06

  I love a ginger beer. Absolutely love ginger beer. I love the taste. I love ginger.

• 36:14Speaker 05

  I love ginger too. Do you put lime ever with your ginger beer?

• 36:17Speaker 06

  Only if they offer it. I wouldn't think of adding it. But if I'm out and I always drink ginger beer, because I'm not very big on alcohol.

• 36:25Jessie Ware?

  You don't drink much, but you've probably been with people that can party quite hard. So are you the sensible one, Arlene, when you used to be out with maybe Elton John and after the I'm Still Standing video?

• 36:37Speaker 05

  So that's why she's still standing, darling.

• 36:40Jessie Ware?

  So much else you.

• 36:41Speaker 06

  I'm, the only drinks I like and have always liked are extravagant cocktails. I mean, I had one in Toronto and it was vodka based and it had candy floss in it. And it was the most divine alcoholic drink I've ever had. If I could go back to that hotel and have another one, I would.

• 37:07Jessie Ware?

  I love that everything you describe, like whether it's with candy floss, I can imagine these visuals. I feel like everything, like the, the heart shaped sushi, everything has to look quite delightful. Am I right? Or maybe not? I mean, I'm sure it has to taste good too.

• 37:19Speaker 06

  It does. I have to, like, I was, feel things like patterns or rhythms or what food I would eat with what food or. It all has to have a, a line through it, you know?

• 37:33Speaker 05

  So what's your big main course?

• 37:35Speaker 06

  My main course is.

• 37:36Speaker 05

  That you're saving yourself for?

• 37:37Speaker 06

  Anything with lobster. I love lobster. So that's why I was like a little afraid of saying about the sushi because here I go again.

• 37:46Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:47Speaker 06

  But I love lobster. It feels.

• 37:49Speaker 05

  How do you like it cooked? Just grilled?

• 37:51Speaker 06

  I like, I don't like it cold. I like it just grilled with a little bit of butter and nothing else.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:59Speaker 06

  Just the lobster and the butter.

• 38:03Jessie Ware?

  No sides?

• 38:04Speaker 06

  I would eat sides, but I wouldn't mind whether there were chips or mashed potato. I love mashed potato.

• 38:10Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 38:11Speaker 05

  What's your pudding?

• 38:13Speaker 06

  Ah, my pudding is definitely like meringue and cream and fruit whipped up. Almost like a Knickerbocker Glory, but in a bowl.

• 38:25Jessie Ware?

  Like an eaten mess?

• 38:26Speaker 06

  Lots of, yeah, more than. I want more than eat, I want a Knickerbocker Glory and yes, an eaten mess together, you know?

• 38:38Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 06

  Get the ice cream, get the meringue, get the cream, pop in the fruit and be extravagant with it. And then I can just, just put the, dip the spoon in and just love every mouthful.

• 38:51Speaker 05

  Arlene, when you talk, you come across as such a warm and generous person. How were you ever a judge on any kind of competition? Because you'd give the benefit of the doubt to anybody, I imagine.

• 39:04Speaker 06

  I think I came from at the start of Strictly, a very different kind of era, a very different way. Kind sort of didn't really come into it.

• 39:18Speaker 05

  It didn't, yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 06

  It didn't really come into it. It was about how powerful we can be and how, uh, for me, the way I was teaching then, I would never teach that way now, but it was disciplined and everyone had to find, you know, in, in dance, everyone had to work really hard. They had to find strength in their body. They had to work, um, for it. We danced on concrete floors, eight hours. You'd never do that now. Every floor is sprung. So I went through the harsh times. So I offered the harsh times for anyone to improve on Strictly. But gradually that faded away and it became heartwarming and helpful.

• 40:04Speaker 06

  And to this day now, I am such a different teacher, choreographer, the whole way. Even my daughters have taught me to be kind and my granddaughters who live to be kind. To the point that, you know, they talk to me about like the races in school, being in the school races. And how, you know, it's about taking part.

• 40:33Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I know, it drives you mad.

• 40:34Speaker 06

  It's not winning. It doesn't mean, I love it. And actually in Starlight Express in Bochum in Germany, which has been running now for thirty-eight years. We have just brought in a Swiss train because it's the slowest train in the world. And it's about this train taking part and picking up those who've crashed and bring them along. And there's a whole new warmth in this, the races in Starlight Express, everything, every nation racing against each other. And suddenly you bring this train in, the applause, the, the, the kind of the love that the audience give to it is a new thing. So that's me, a new thing.

• 41:19Jessie Ware?

  Let's talk about Starlight Express. You choreographed the original Starlight Express.

• 41:22Speaker 05

  Jess's favourite.

• 41:23Jessie Ware?

  Well, to be honest, I never saw it the first time around and I feel like you really denied me that.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  Sorry, darling.

• 41:28Jessie Ware?

  But I took my kids to the recent one in Wembley, but it has never come off in Germany.

• 41:35Speaker 06

  No, thirty-eight years sold out.

• 41:38Jessie Ware?

  It is.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  I mean, it's it's quite bonkers.

• 41:42Speaker 06

  It is utterly and totally bonkers.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  I mean, we're all trains, but we're talking, you know.

• 41:48Speaker 06

  It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of, and then I was like.

• 41:51Speaker 05

  Anyone, yeah.

• 41:52Jessie Ware?

  But but but this is how deep I am to musical theatre, into musical theatre with my children at the moment. I spotted hydrogen as a rum tucker in Cats.

• 42:03Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 42:04Jessie Ware?

  And I was like, that's hydrogen, kids. That's hydrogen.

• 42:07Speaker 06

  It absolutely is.

• 42:09Jessie Ware?

  I I swear there were a few Starlight Express, um.

• 42:12Speaker 06

  There were a number of.

• 42:13Jessie Ware?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 06

  Ex Starlighters.

• 42:15Jessie Ware?

  It made me laugh so much. I was like, wow, I'm really an M T if I'm spotting the rum tucker.

• 42:19Speaker 05

  Andrew Royd, Reba White, Starlight Express.

• 42:22Speaker 06

  Yes, he did. He wrote it for his two children, Nick and Imogen at the time. Sadly, Nick passed away and he was also a writer, music of music. And but he wrote it for them because he was absolutely in love with trains and the little engine that could. And, you know, Thomas the Tank Engine, those were his loves.

• 42:48Jessie Ware?

  You did Saturday Night Fever.

• 42:49Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 42:50Jessie Ware?

  The original one in London.

• 42:51Speaker 06

  Original one in London.

• 42:52Jessie Ware?

  Can I tell you, I loved Adam Garcia so much that I wrote to him and he sent me a picture, a signed picture. I fancied him so much.

• 43:02Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. So did everybody.

• 43:03Jessie Ware?

  He was so handsome.

• 43:05Speaker 06

  The stage door at the Palladium was packed.

• 43:10Jessie Ware?

  Oh, I bet.

• 43:10Speaker 06

  You know, everyone thinks it's only got packed when Evita was on, when Adam Garcia was on and he walked out.

• 43:16Speaker 05

  He's so gorgeous.

• 43:17Speaker 06

  He had a beanie on and his head down. A lot of people would miss him. Such a beautiful human being, so wonderful and such a great actor and dancer. He is one of the top dancers, tap dancers in the world.

• 43:40Jessie Ware?

  This is sumac roasted strawberries with Greek yogurt and actually Ottolenghi granola on the top. So it's, you know, it's not your Nick of Boca Glory, but it's nearly close.

• 43:53Speaker 06

  Mm.

• 43:54Jessie Ware?

  That's nice.

• 43:55Speaker 06

  Delicious. This is super delicious. Oh, my gosh.

• 43:59Jessie Ware?

  I need to know more about some of these greats that you've worked with. Are there any memorable meals that you had with Aretha Franklin? Did Elton John take you out for dinner?

• 44:10Speaker 06

  Many times.

• 44:11Jessie Ware?

  Oh, really?

• 44:13Speaker 06

  Always. He is the most generous of human beings I've really ever worked with. Always dinners, always the best time. I don't think he really liked making music videos.

• 44:30Jessie Ware?

  Right.

• 44:30Speaker 06

  There are a lot of persuading going on, but a wonderful Aretha Franklin. When I was working with her, she was very agoraphobic.

• 44:42Jessie Ware?

  Hmm.

• 44:42Speaker 06

  Couldn't come out of the house and they had the the hallway centered to the car. And the same when we got into the studio.

• 44:51Jessie Ware?

  Why she didn't perform anymore.

• 44:53Speaker 05

  But how does she sing at the inauguration of Barack Obama?

• 44:56Jessie Ware?

  Great difficulty. Probably it was very difficult to get her.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  I didn't know that.

• 45:01Jessie Ware?

  Well, because she believed in Barack so much and I don't know. So what you'd have, it would have to all be covered.

• 45:08Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 45:09Jessie Ware?

  It's a shame.

• 45:10Speaker 06

  She's like dynamite and she's there singing.

• 45:13Jessie Ware?

  Oh, Freddie Mercury.

• 45:16Speaker 06

  Freddie.

• 45:17Jessie Ware?

  Tell us about Freddie Mercury.

• 45:18Speaker 06

  Freddie, my love. Oh, my God. What was so beautiful about Freddie is, like Elton, was, you know, music videos, he would do them. He was not in love with it. Freddie loved every second. From the moment he decides on the track, you're gathered, he had a a little flat in Earl's Court. Not too far away from where he lived and that was his working place.

• 45:45Jessie Ware?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:46Speaker 06

  Freddie was involved with every moment, everything he wanted, the detail. And he was also this most incredible human being and after meeting him. I think doing two or three videos, I was then invited to the house, to the parties, the wild parties. The incredible bedroom that, you know.

• 46:08Jessie Ware?

  What happened in the bedroom?

• 46:09Speaker 06

  And all, well, just to have a look at it. It's all mirrored and the ceiling is mirrored. It's just wonderful and extravagant and.

• 46:17Jessie Ware?

  Was that the place of the house party where everyone would go for a deep and meaningful? Would you go into Freddie's bedroom and everyone would have a chat? Like, you know how when you're at a house party, you always find the bedroom and you have a sit down?

• 46:27Speaker 06

  He was happy to sit on the bed, yeah, yeah.

• 46:29Speaker 05

  And you're drinking ginger beer.

• 46:31Speaker 06

  I know. I think it was a little wilder at the time.

• 46:35Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 46:36Speaker 06

  Anything goes, but working with him was just unbelievable. And and the things that he wanted to do, you know, wild and wonderful, stand on top of the mountain, fly down, you know, it's just. Just incredible. I had the most interesting life. I mean, I was there and back on aeroplanes, you know. I don't know, I was making, you know, videos in L A and then I would come back and do two in London and then I'd go, you know, off somewhere else, south of France or. Um, so ever on an aeroplane and ever travelling and they were, you know, the the whole M T V thing.

• 47:18Speaker 06

  Which, I was one of the choreographers there right at the start. The whole storytelling within those three minutes was worked on and they would be up and down in a day. They would start building at six A M, they'd build the set, they'd build the design. You'd go in, you're doing shot after shot after shot after shot and, you know, you'd finish at midnight. And everybody just got on with it. That's the way it was because particularly with superstars, they were going somewhere else the next day. But it was just a wild and wonderful time, the whole M T V thing.

• 47:56Jessie Ware?

  I wanted to know, you you've taught so many people, you've helped people with their career and you've given so many artists. So much to their careers with your dance. Is there any artist that stands out that's taught you something?

• 48:13Speaker 06

  I think if if it was any artist, I would say Freddie. Because with Freddie, there was no way that something couldn't happen if he wanted it.

• 48:27Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 48:27Speaker 06

  Even to the point when I was doing a music video he did, I Was Born to Love You. And we had a couple from Belgium, two dancers that had hired, who were really, really frenetic and dangerous and. You know, one of the, one of like the the male dancer had a knife, the younger, younger dancer was dressed in like fiery clothes. And we started to do a dance that, create this piece that had a a feeling of danger. But then the male dancer started taking it like, there was a slide along the floor, which was.

• 49:07Speaker 06

  That you you push her, you know, sideways on her knees and that slide is taken on your hip. But he literally threw her and at the end of the catwalk in which she was on was a large sort of mirror. And she cracked her head against the mirror.

• 49:24Speaker 05

  Crikey.

• 49:25Speaker 06

  Head was bleeding, so she was taken to the nearest hospital by Freddie, who said, let me go, let me go. Lifted her up like he was King Kong and said, right, and I, and he turns to me and said, I'll be back very quickly. Because they're going to do this very quickly because I'm going to go in and sign autographs all the time running to the door. And um, and so we'll continue when I get back and he actually did. He took her to the hospital. Got his way into A and E, stitched up, brought her back and we continued. Um, and it was just unbelievable, but in the moment and the time that he was away.

• 50:08Speaker 06

  One of the carpenters and they they all did sort of everything, you know, they built sets, they, oh, whatever. One of them came over to me and he said, that was your fault. I think you should be fully responsible for her cracking her head. I said, but what do you mean? He said, well, I was watching that and each slide got more energy into it. Than the one before and you were saying one more, one more.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 50:38Speaker 06

  Which I did.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  You're encouraging him.

• 50:40Speaker 06

  And he thought that, yeah, that I was responsible.

• 50:44Jessie Ware?

  How did that make you feel?

• 50:46Speaker 06

  I was furious. I said, no, this was carefully composed. It was an all out mistake and no, I think you're actually even wrong. Anyway, we started talking. We've never stopped talking and he is still my partner.

• 51:05Jessie Ware?

  Ah, that's so good.

• 51:06Speaker 06

  Daughter's dad.

• 51:08Jessie Ware?

  Maybe he was like, what's it called, nagging you? He was basically being like.

• 51:12Speaker 05

  He was chatting you up, really.

• 51:14Jessie Ware?

  Was that? Wow.

• 51:15Speaker 06

  I don't know, but anyway, we've been together ever since.

• 51:18Speaker 05

  How funny.

• 51:19Jessie Ware?

  That's brilliant.

• 51:20Speaker 05

  All because of Freddie.

• 51:21Jessie Ware?

  Do you ever work together again?

• 51:23Speaker 06

  We worked together a lot after that, you know, because he worked in music videos and I worked in music videos. So, yes, we did.

• 51:30Jessie Ware?

  We we're trying out some new questions in this series and we want to do one that's called So Wrong, It's Right. But I feel like you won't think anything's wrong, but is there any any interesting combinations that Arlene Phillips likes to, uh?

• 51:43Speaker 05

  Eat.

• 51:43Jessie Ware?

  Eat.

• 51:44Speaker 06

  I love sweet and savoury. A lot of people do not like that, you know. I would eat a pickled cucumber with jam on it. Um.

• 51:55Speaker 05

  Do you?

• 51:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, in a bagel.

• 51:58Speaker 05

  Oh my word.

• 52:00Jessie Ware?

  Okay.

• 52:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, why not?

• 52:01Speaker 05

  Why not?

• 52:02Speaker 06

  You know, I, I love that feeling. I think Abby started me off on it, my daughter, she loves sweet and savoury.

• 52:09Jessie Ware?

  This is interesting because we're going to try all these things. So Arlene Phillips is a pickle, what kind of pickle?

• 52:16Speaker 06

  Pickle cucumber. Mrs. L. Wood, but sweet and sour.

• 52:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 52:20Speaker 06

  Sweet and sour. Yeah.

• 52:20Jessie Ware?

  What kind of jam?

• 52:22Speaker 06

  And the jam, I love strawberry jam. And then I would add some cream cheese into it.

• 52:28Jessie Ware?

  Sure.

• 52:28Speaker 06

  And, and why not? And then actually that ting you get when the pickle hits the jam, I love it.

• 52:37Jessie Ware?

  Are you gonna try that one, Les?

• 52:39Speaker 05

  No.

• 52:39Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, you will, you will. Um, okay, well, that was a perfect answer, so great. If we were coming around to your house for dinner.

• 52:48Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:49Jessie Ware?

  Would you be cooking?

• 52:50Speaker 06

  Absolutely not. Hundred percent, I don't think anyone would or has ever eaten my food. Um, no, it's too odd. But my partner is a brilliant, brilliant cook.

• 53:05Jessie Ware?

  The carpenter.

• 53:06Speaker 06

  Yes, the ex carpenter, yeah. Brilliant, brilliant cook and he makes the most delicious meals and I am so lucky. Because I'm always out working and there's always a meal ready of delicious food. And who could want anything better than that?

• 53:23Speaker 05

  You couldn't.

• 53:23Jessie Ware?

  So if we were coming around to yours.

• 53:25Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 53:25Jessie Ware?

  What would you be asking him to make for us and what would we be listening to?

• 53:29Speaker 06

  Okay, I would probably be asking him to make his spaghetti bolognese. Because the sauce, I don't know what he puts in it, but everybody in my family, the children, the grandchildren. Absolutely love his bolognese sauce. It has such a, a tinge to it of, of so many flavours bedded in this gorgeous.

• 53:58Jessie Ware?

  Does your daughter know what the secret sauce is for her, what is it, Abby?

• 54:02Speaker 06

  Cinnamon.

• 54:03Jessie Ware?

  Cinnamon, oh, I've got cinnamon in mine, okay.

• 54:05Speaker 05

  Cause in Greece they put cinnamon in, yeah.

• 54:07Jessie Ware?

  Yes.

• 54:08Speaker 05

  Love that.

• 54:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 54:09Jessie Ware?

  What's the sweet and salty, you know?

• 54:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 54:11Jessie Ware?

  And then what would be playing at your dinner party?

• 54:14Speaker 06

  Well, if I had my way, it would be musical theatre tunes. It would a hundred percent, one after the other, after the other, after the other. But if people object to theatre tunes, it probably would be eighties.

• 54:36Jessie Ware?

  Eighties.

• 54:36Speaker 06

  Eighties anthems.

• 54:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 06

  Belt them out.

• 54:40Speaker 05

  Or as your children call it, eighties.

• 54:41Jessie Ware?

  Eighties, eighties.

• 54:42Speaker 05

  Eighties.

• 54:43Jessie Ware?

  That's London's eighties.

• 54:44Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 54:44Jessie Ware?

  Um, I love that. Can you tell us a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere?

• 54:51Speaker 06

  Oh, I've already mentioned chicken soup, a hundred percent my mother's chicken soup. But another taste that would absolutely make me travel anywhere to it. Is caviar with sour cream.

• 55:09Jessie Ware?

  You have lived a life, Arlene Phillips, and I'm here for it. Go on, okay, caviar.

• 55:14Speaker 06

  Caviar, sour cream, lots and lots of lemon squeezed in and pepper on the top.

• 55:21Speaker 05

  What, what do you have it on, a cracker?

• 55:23Speaker 06

  I would, I, I prefer to have it on a cracker than I do on a bleeenie.

• 55:28Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 55:28Speaker 06

  Cause sometimes those bleeenies don't toast well.

• 55:30Speaker 05

  No, they don't.

• 55:31Speaker 06

  You're eating this flavour of.

• 55:33Speaker 05

  Spongy thing, yeah.

• 55:34Jessie Ware?

  I think Goldie Hawn in Overboard has it on a cracker.

• 55:38Speaker 06

  Does she?

• 55:38Jessie Ware?

  I think she does.

• 55:39Speaker 06

  If Goldie Hawn can have it on a cracker.

• 55:41Speaker 05

  You can, yeah.

• 55:43Jessie Ware?

  I just wanna know, did you ever go to Studio fifty four?

• 55:47Speaker 06

  I did.

• 55:48Jessie Ware?

  Was it amazing?

• 55:49Speaker 06

  It was unreal. Funny enough, I saw Rocky Horror Show there two weeks ago.

• 55:56Jessie Ware?

  Oh, did you see Luke Evans?

• 55:58Speaker 06

  Luke Evans.

• 55:59Jessie Ware?

  Oh, he's so fantastic. He's such a, I'm so happy for him, it's going so well.

• 56:03Speaker 06

  Brilliant. I, I think possibly the best I've ever seen.

• 56:07Jessie Ware?

  Oh, really?

• 56:07Speaker 06

  Oh, he was absolutely brilliant. And when that voice comes out, you know, suddenly you.

• 56:14Speaker 05

  It has got a voice.

• 56:15Speaker 06

  A voice, a beautiful voice, tone. But I went to Studio fifty four and the first person to take me to Studio fifty four was Bianca Jagger.

• 56:26Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 56:26Speaker 06

  And why? Because I used to teach occasionally Mick, but mostly Bianca Jagger to a class, to dance class. I used to go to their house in Shoney Walk.

• 56:38Jessie Ware?

  What would they want him to dance?

• 56:40Speaker 06

  Well, Bianca wanted to learn to dance for exercises to keep her perfect body. And just Mick, she pushed him to do a bit of dance.

• 56:49Speaker 05

  God, it's all down to you then, Arlene, that he's still moving.

• 56:52Speaker 06

  Oh, well, isn't he an enigma?

• 56:56Speaker 05

  Crikey.

• 56:57Speaker 06

  You know, but I was teaching her and she was going to be in New York and she wanted me to continue teaching her. So I went to New York and was taken to Studio fifty four with Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger. I mean, it was just.

• 57:12Speaker 05

  What, can you remember what you wore?

• 57:14Jessie Ware?

  Yeah, what did you wear?

• 57:15Speaker 06

  I don't know, but interestingly, there's a photograph of me and Bianca Jagger dancing together that was double page of the Daily Mirror. And we were just dancing like arms wrapped around each other. So somewhere, what I wore will be in that photograph.

• 57:32Speaker 05

  What's the table manner, the worst table manner you observe in other people that drives you mad?

• 57:37Speaker 06

  The worst?

• 57:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:38Speaker 06

  People not putting their knives and forks back properly, just leaving them anywhere. Anywhere at all, I don't get it.

• 57:48Speaker 05

  You don't know if they've finished or not?

• 57:50Speaker 06

  No, no, it's sort of lying, no, no, it's, well, it's like me.

• 57:54Speaker 05

  No, you're fine.

• 57:56Speaker 06

  Um, I feel like when you finish a meal, you're closing the door. You know, you're not leaving the door open to continue, make your decision and finish.

• 58:07Jessie Ware?

  And on that note, thank you so much for coming over. It has been so fantastic hearing your stories.

• 58:13Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 58:13Jessie Ware?

  And I'm sure there's about a whole series worth of stories from you. I'm so impressed and inspired by you that you carry on just with this joie de vivre of just passion and creating. And it's so exciting, but also the formidable work that you've already produced. So thank you so much for everything that you've given us and you continue to give us, Arlene.

• 58:34Speaker 06

  I love it.

• 58:50Jessie Ware?

  Dame Arlene Phillips, loved having her, what amazing stories.

• 58:55Speaker 06

  Such a delight.

• 58:56Jessie Ware?

  She was fantastic. I thought the food was really nice.

• 59:00Speaker 05

  I thought, yeah.

• 59:05Speaker 05

  No, I thought it was delicious. I thought the beans were exceptional.

• 59:09Jessie Ware?

  The beans were fab.

• 59:10Speaker 05

  The beans were.

• 59:11Jessie Ware?

  And I thought that pudding was lovely.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  Oh my god, that pudding, exceptional. Where was that from?

• 59:18Jessie Ware?

  Ottolenghi, simple too.

• 59:20Speaker 05

  Oh, that was delicious.

• 59:21Jessie Ware?

  So easy as well.

• 59:22Speaker 05

  Did you make the granola?

• 59:24Jessie Ware?

  No, it's Ottolenghi's one, cause I.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  You bought it?

• 59:28Jessie Ware?

  I bought it cause I needed to buy the bloody Bibel Salcassi thing. So I was like, I'll sort it, I may as well bring some.

• 59:34Speaker 05

  Where did you buy it from?

• 59:35Jessie Ware?

  Deliveroo.

• 59:37Speaker 05

  Oh, but where?

• 59:39Jessie Ware?

  Ottolenghi, yeah.

• 59:40Speaker 05

  They had to schlep from the middle of London.

• 59:42Jessie Ware?

  Well, I did pay for it, so don't worry.

• 59:44Speaker 05

  I know.

• 59:45Jessie Ware?

  And it was extra because they were going further, but whatever, it was worth it cause it's delicious.

• 59:49Speaker 05

  Fantastic granola.

• 59:50Jessie Ware?

  By tomorrow.

• 59:51Speaker 05

  But I'm sure there's a recipe for that granola.

• 59:53Jessie Ware?

  No, it's in that book as well, he's got an everyday granola, anyway. Delicious, you should go and get the book, it's great. Um, and Arlene Phillips, just wonderful, wonderful guest, so lucky to have her. I mean, how old is she, eighty?

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  Three.

• 1:00:08Jessie Ware?

  Eighty three and she's still.

• 1:00:11Speaker 05

  Dancing.

• 1:00:11Jessie Ware?

  But not even just dancing, she's creating, I mean.

• 1:00:16Speaker 05

  She's creative.

• 1:00:18Jessie Ware?

  It's unbelievable what she's still doing and what she's already achieved.

• 1:00:21Speaker 05

  But I, what I loved about her was her warmth and generosity. She just kind of sees the world in a very positive light and sees people positively. And it's kind of nice, isn't it?

• 1:00:34Jessie Ware?

  I really think she could have a, a biopic about her.

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:38Jessie Ware?

  I saw it when she was in the dance studio and the person's like, I want you to move to London.

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  So you're gonna play her?

• 1:00:44Jessie Ware?

  I don't think I can play her. And also, you know, meeting her husband on set, everything's like a movie.

• 1:00:50Speaker 05

  When he told her it was her fault.

• 1:00:51Jessie Ware?

  It's so good. Um, thank you Dame Arlene Phillips for coming on Table Manners and we'll see you next week for more table manners.

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