Podcast: Arlene Phillips wishes she had been 'at forefront of fighting' ageism after being axed from Strictly

Strictly Come Dancing former TV judge Arlene Phillips has revealed that being replaced on the show by Alesha Dixon left her 'extremely distressed' and looking back she wishes she had been 'at the forefront of fighting' ageism at the BBC.

Speaking candidly as a guest on the Let’s Talk About Care podcast, Arlene Phillips said her happiest memories on Strictly Come Dancing "were arriving at BBC Television Centre, saying 'hi' to the three judges and watching a glorious Saturday of dance".

However, in 2008, the BBC did not renew her contract and Ms Phillips found out about the news via a journalist. “I was let go in an unfair way and a lot of people knew before I did. I was pursued by photographers. I didn’t even know what was happening and couldn’t get through to the BBC.”

Having lost her manager the day before to cancer, she was already struggling and being dropped from the show was "extremely distressing".

Reflecting on what happened, Ms Phillips says she wishes she was a “bit bolder at the time. I wasn’t even in a frame of mind to question.”

But "I wish I had been at the forefront of fighting" the ageism that was going on at the BBC.

Ms Phillips has had more than her fair share of adversity, losing her mum when she was a teenager and having to care for her father, Abraham, when he developed dementia.

’I started receiving calls from the police saying they had found him wandering around’

On the podcast she reveals how she had intense guilt when she and her sister were forced to put him into full-time care before his death in 2000 aged 89.

Ms Phillips said: “My dad lived in a flat very close to where I lived, he kept coming round to visit. He would arrive and he didn’t know why he was there.

“I was putting little notes in every pocket with his name on and my phone number. Then I started receiving calls from the police saying they had found him wandering around.”

Ms Phillips became aware he needed full-time care when simple tasks such as making a cup of tea became dangerous. "There was a can of baked beans on the gas which he hadn't even opened or the kettle would be boiled dry." Her father went to live in a care home near to where Ms Phillips lived but her decision left her feeling guilty.

“We’re not superhuman. If the person had a physical ailment [and] you could not take care of them, you would not even think about it. They would go into full-time care and you would not even take one moment to think this is what is best for them.

“Somehow with dementia and Alzheimer’s, we feel a guilt and I don’t know why that is or how to ease that, but it is a disease, and it is a disease where people can and are taken care of.”

As an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society, she worked with the charity on their Dancing With Dementia campaign in 2020. During lockdown, she joined former dance teacher Julie Foster on Zoom to promote the importance of keeping active and highlight how music is so important as a connection to people living with dementia. Julie, 58, was diagnosed with early-onset dementia in 2017.

"We were able to talk about dance and talk about dance in the past. I was trying to reach to her and her big love is ballet but it's harder to follow...so I said how about we do a bit of Saturday Night Fever and immediately she just jumped up and could remember all the disco moves. It was an amazing connection.”

’Once I saw my first ballet, it was all I ever wanted to do’

The dancing legend started learning ballet at the age of three and after leaving school at 16, she went on to study ballet and tap dance in Manchester where she was offered a chance to spend a week at a London dance school. During her time there her American jazz instructor Molly Malloy told her: “You’re extraordinary, I’ve never had a student come into my class and understood the language of dance. I would be prepared to give you a scholarship.”

That evening, Ms Phillips made the life-changing decision not to return to Manchester and begin her new career in London. Molly Malloy arranged accommodation and a job for Ms Phillips as a live-in childminder for director Ridley Scott.

’If passion lived in anyone, it lived in Freddie’

In 1974 Ms Phillips managed and choreographed Hot Gossip, a British dance troupe which she formed in 1974. They also featured on a disco hit, I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper, by Sarah Brightman, which reached number six in the charts.

In the 1980s, MTV came along and demand for music videos grew and she choreographed videos for Diana Ross, Elton John, Whitney Houston to name a few.

She also choreographed West End musicals, including Starlight Express, for which she was nominated for an Olivier award.

Out of all the people she has worked with, Ms Phillips says her inspiration was Freddie Mercury. “He was an extraordinarily creative being. He cared about every detail of the music videos we made together… he was fearless and an adventurer. If passion lived in anyone, it lived in Freddie.”

Ms Phillips, 77, says she is “young in heart. I’m not disillusioned about my age, but I feel like I can do anything I want, I’ll act the way I want and I’ll be the way I want.”

During the first lockdown of 2020, Ms Phillips was walking 20km per day and her advice for everyone living in lockdown: “Get out walking and if you can’t, walk round and round in circles. I sometimes put the news on and walk circles just so that I am not sitting on my butt day and night."

Speaking about the pandemic and care home residents unable to see and hug their family, she says: “It is heart-breaking and unfair and cruel. It has been like a cavern of emptiness that has to be filled and filled rapidly.”

Ms Phillips would also like to see changes to allow families to visit relatives on a 24-hour, seven day a week basis. “There has to be a way of being able to embrace family. There has to be moments where a family member can pull out a camp bed and sleep by the person they need to be with.”

To listen to the full podcast click here