For men possessed of sufficient age and experience, the secret to dancing like no one is watching is simple: make sure no one is watching. Lock the doors, draw the curtains, put black tape over all the webcams in your house, and proceed. I was going to add that you should only dance anywhere you would also be happy to appear naked, until I remembered the shower, and saunas. Obviously, don’t dance in either of those.
No such security was available to Prince William at the weekend, when he was spotted – and also filmed – dancing away to Taylor Swift at Wembley Stadium on his 42nd birthday, in a blue blazer, high up on the balcony of some hospitality suite. It’s amazing to me that seats that expensive don’t come with one-way privacy screens, but evidently they do not.
If you want to help the middle-aged dad in your life learn to dance as if no one is watching, the advice is also simple: pretend that you haven’t seen anything. Do not comment on his flailing arms or his basic issues with rhythm. Do not film him on your phone. Above all, do not trade impressions of his dancing at breakfast the next morning. In my experience, no one has ever heeded any of this advice.
To be fair to the Prince of Wales, I think he just about got away with it. The clip was mercifully short, the dancing goofily exuberant, and the comments mostly affectionate. The secret to this kind of successful dad-dancing is a sly, underlying self-awareness: dance like everyone is watching, and lean into the comic stupidity of it. But it’s easy to forget this strategy, and go earnest.
I can’t remember the last time I danced in public – I would have been very drunk – but I can recall the last time I didn’t. I got invited to see Abba Voyage – that show with the uncannily lifelike Abba avatars performing a succession of timeless, stirring, pop hits. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and remained pretty much static throughout. I may have nodded my head a little bit, but not in time to the music – just in approbation, while thinking: great work, everyone involved.
It’s not that I can’t dance. When I was young some hucksters came to our town and managed to convince all the parents that what their children really needed to get ahead in life was ballroom dancing lessons. Almost everyone in my year was immediately signed up. As a result I am well trained in the waltz, the foxtrot, the cha cha and the Latin hustle. But as one gets older, one tends to gravitate towards the things one is truly good at, and I happen to be good at standing still. Would I have been able to resist the urge to dance even as Taylor Swift tore into Shake It Off live at Wembley? I like to think so.
If that makes me seem joyless, I can live with that. I’m self-conscious and uncomfortable in the face of almost every public activity. Why would I make an exception for dancing?
Having said that, I do make some exceptions, even at my age. I can sing like no one’s listening, in that I don’t care if my best isn’t good enough, and I also don’t care if you do care. And occasionally, when I’m in the mood, I cook like no one’s going to have to eat it afterwards. If you don’t like it, order a takeaway, and stop raining on my parade.
Tim Dowling is a Guardian columnist
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