From My Blog

Another dancing article, in which Len Goodman calls me a sausage…

‘Come on Luce, me old sausage’, Len said, as I sat trembling in my dressing room, ‘let’s get dancing!’  Len Goodman is better known as ‘Head Judge Len’ from the BBC’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’.  But we weren’t on the ‘Strictly’ set; we were backstage at a West End nightclub. And I wasn’t at all keen

Our new BBC4 series – on the history of dancing

It’s an article for you from today’s Daily Mail, written by the excellent Mary Greene… Gatsby and Daisy? No, it’s Lucy and Len, toes tapping, knees waggling, arms flapping. Everybody’s doing the Charleston today, including Len Goodman and Dr Lucy Worsley, unlikely partners in Dancing Cheek To Cheek, BBC4’s new history of British dance crazes

A bit of a swoon about Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski

In the 1980s I was a bit of a stalker. Fortunately, the object of my affections was not a person but a thing: it was West Bridgford Library in the suburb of Nottingham where we lived. I can’t really remember how I started ‘working’ there – something to do with the Girl Guides, I think

Preview: The Museum of London’s Sherlock Holmes exhibition, opens 17th October

My preview from the Express this weekend… Sherlock fans!  The game’s afoot.  From Friday we’ll be able to get closer than ever to the greatest detective who never lived.  Better still, we’ll be able to travel back in time to visit his foggy, gas-lit and crime-ridden city.  The Museum of London’s new Sherlock Holmes exhibition opens this

Reading old diaries – and very interesting it is too! (For me, at least.)

Over the last few weeks I’ve been re-reading some old diaries of mine, because I’m going to take part in a radio programme called ‘My Teenage Diary’. As you can see from this picture of my big box of old diaries, I have plenty of material from which to choose.  Ooh, and even if I

New TV series on the history of dancing – some behind-the-scenes pictures for you

This week our new BBC Four series on dancing -‘Cheek to Cheek, An Intimate History of Dance’ – was officially announced at the Edinburgh Festival, and you can read the press release here.  They also released a picture taken during the day we danced the Charleston at the Cafe de Paris in Leicester Square.  What

I invite you to be my stylist … on the theme of ‘Tudor Magnificence’

Dear internet friends, Now obviously we discuss history and research and stuff like that on this blog.  But we also like clothes and shoes, don’t we? And yes, these things matter.  Certainly as an art historian I have no problem in agreeing that they can be propaganda of the highest order.  At the moment, I

On writing history articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Warning: this post gets a bit technical and may only be of interest to hard-core historians. It’s exactly ten years since I learned that my first book was to be published by Faber & Faber.  I remember getting the phone call at work, in our Monday morning management team meeting.  I’d left my phone switched

‘Written and presented by …’

One question I’m often asked after giving a talk is ‘how do you research/write your history television programmes?’ Well, the answer is that I don’t: they’re a massive team effort, and I’m only the mouthpiece for a group of people. It’s one of the reasons that they’re fun to make, as it’s totally collaborative.  That’s

‘Tales from the Royal Wardrobe’: some behind-the-scenes pictures

Well, I hope you’re going to enjoy ‘Tales from the Royal Wardrobe’ tonight. I think I shall be enjoying myself this evening not least because I’ll be watching with my friends from the crew with maybe a cocktail or two to hand. I have here for you some behind-the-scenes photos from when we were making