The influence of choreography is rarely evident in what used to be called light entertainment on television these days. However, there was once a golden age of studio-bound high-kicking hoofers, largely due to the groundbreaking career of Dougie Squires, who has died aged 91.
Squires’ Young Generation troupe, formed in 1967, made their debut on the Rolf Harris Show. By 1970 they had their own Young Generation Show, out of which Squires masterminded a dance-led series of specials, such as the Young Generation Meets … Lulu, or Shirley Bassey, Vera Lynn, Engelbert Humperdinck or Vince Hill.
The style was one of wholesome exuberance, which held sway until challenged by the advent of smaller, sexier TV troupes such as Arlene Phillips’s Hot Gossip (1974-86) on the Kenny Everett Video Show, Flick Colby’s Pan’s People (early 1970s) on Top of the Pops, and Wayne Sleep’s jazz/ballet dance combo Dash 10 years later.
The Young Generation were 15 male and 15 female dancers, of all sizes, shapes and ethnicities – Squires was a pioneer in this respect – interacting at top speed, in what Squires himself called “a mishmash” of Bob Fosse, rock’n’roll, and what became known as disco dancing. Jazz dance and ballet were at the root of it all, but the overall impact, the dynamic and patterns of the movement precisely conceived for the camera angles, never seemed over-regimented or compromised.
There was a Second Generation troupe in the early 70s, working freelance under Squires’ management, which included Lesley Judd (the Blue Peter presenter), Liz Robertson, Wei Wei Wong and Debbie McGee. They appeared on Morecambe and Wise and The Two Ronnies, and Squires became the go-to choreographer for Royal Command performances, pageants such as the Queen Mother’s 100th birthday in Horse Guards Parade, the Queen’s Jubilee in Hyde Park and tribute shows, notably the one he produced to celebrate Lynn’s 100th birthday at the London Palladium in 2017.
More than 100 of his “Generation” family took the stage on that occasion, a reunion that prompted the instigation of monthly warm-up and dance routine sessions in the Dance Attic in Fulham, supervised by Squires’ partner of 45 years, Antony Johns, while Squires himself sat in a wheelchair, trademark clipboard held tight, watching closely. Each session would end with a company rendition of Sister Sledge’s 1979 disco dance hit We Are Family. Squires had first met Johns when he won a dance prize to have classes with the Second Generation.
Born in Long Eaton, Derbyshire, Dougie was the eldest of five children of Gladys (nee Fairfax) and Bill Squires, who worked in the nearby piano factory. He was educated at Long Eaton school for boys and, while an active member of local amateur drama groups, started work as an accountant.
When he had saved enough money, he went to London and worked as a waiter in Lyons Corner House in the Strand. This income supported his dance training with Audrey de Vos in 1952. He had been told he had “good feet” but terrible arms and needed the classical rigour that De Vos, who had become a mentor to Beryl Grey when the great prima had tired of the Royal Ballet, could supply; her unconventional approach was holistic, including exercise warm-ups and adjusting movement to suit each dancer’s individual physique and personality. To the end of his life, Squires utilised these exercises, and practised a similar holistic approach.
At the age of 22, he embarked, as a singer and dancer, on a round of summer seasons and pantomimes around the country, and variety shows in Glasgow, where he directed the great comedians Jimmy Logan and Rikki Fulton. Then, in 1956, came the gamechanger: he was cast by the drama director Joan Kemp-Welch in the first, experimental pop music show, Cool for Cats, for the ITV station Associated-Rediffusion.
On the first day, Kemp-Welch said they had run out of money and he, Squires, would have to double as choreographer for the company of three young women and three young men. Over the five years of the show’s life – which started out as a thrice-weekly 15-minute late-night slot and gradually went to 30 minutes – he brought something entirely new to television, let alone television dance, and broke down barriers.
Devised around the latest record releases, with occasional live appearances by artists including Bassey, Craig Douglas and a very new Cliff Richard, Squires devised all sorts of routines for the Dougie Squires Dancers based on what he discovered each performer could do. As these included Barbara Ferris, Una Stubbs, Amanda Barrie and Betty Laine, the results were both distinctive and idiosyncratic. The host of Cool for Cats was Kent Walton – later the voice of wrestling on ITV – and Tony Hart was on hand to rustle up instant illustrations to accompany the action.
Two of his proteges in the Young Generation, Nigel Lythgoe and Ken Warwick, went on to sustain big careers, while contemporary television choreographers, equally innovative and influential, such as Paddy Stone and Irving Davies, went international. Dougie himself staged My Fair Lady and Oliver! in mainland European opera houses.
More locally, although he never choreographed a great new British musical, he did direct Stubbs as a fire-cracker Irma La Douce at the Watford Palace in 1975; Danny La Rue in Aladdin at the London Palladium in 1978; as well as, in the 1980s, at the Connaught in Worthing, Su Pollard and Jess Conrad in Sweet Charity, and Barbara Windsor and Christopher Biggins in Guys and Dolls.
For Patti Boulaye, whose “spirit of Africa” musical Sundance he directed at the Hackney Empire in 2005 – a spectacular display of drumming, acrobatics, tribal choreography and love songs – it was not just the steps he devised that impressed her, but the way in which he conceived the whole picture. In 2009 he was appointed OBE.
Dougie is survived by Antony; they became civil partners in 2006 and married in 2015. He also leaves his younger brother, Tony, and sister, Pearl.
• Douglas William Squires, dancer and choreographer, born 16 February 1932, died 21 May 2023
