Turn on the tap

"You know," I remarked to my wife on the way out of the multiplex, "I would kind of like to take tap-dancing lessons."

"Oh! I was hoping you'd be inspired to take a vow of silence," she responded.

She didn't really. Actually, she was quite pro the idea but did remind me that I am completely malco, like a rhino on ketamine, and that what I claim is natural exuberance on the dance floor is really just embarrassing. "Actually, please do take lessons, it's your only hope." And maybe, she said, she might join me after a couple of months, if I didn't die.

This might have remained a passing fancy but then the following day, as I strolled around the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy, I made an astonishing discovery. The last work in the show is a video installation, featuring a group of Royal Ballet dancers. In one of them, Stephen McRae, begins to tap-dance - amazingly.

Two mood-alteringly joyous pieces of art culminating in a bit of hoofing in two days? Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, clearly has a message for us in 2012.

A few phone calls later and Sadler's Wells had lent me the use of its Gillian Lynne studio and choreographer Tommy Franzen had agreed to give me a lesson. I just managed to get to Freed dance suppliers in St Martin's Lane to buy a pair of shoes before they closed.

"Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire?" the assistant asked, presenting me with two contrasting styles.

Actually, the Gene Kelly pair was the only ones that fitted, so Gene Kelly I was. Gene Kelly about to take his first tap lesson.

Tommy has recently been seen streetdancing in Some Like It Hip Hop at the Peacock Theatre and is currently rehearsing for Russell Maliphant's new ballet, the Rodin Project, due at Sadler's Wells next month. However, tap is his first love, he said. Sadly, there aren't as many opportunities to indulge as he would like. All the same, he too had seen The Artist and adored it - and dared to hope it would bring about a tap revival.

As he lined up Mack the Knife on his iPod and ran me through the basics, I learned that there are two things that you need to tap dance. You need pliant ankles and knees; and you need exceptionally good balance. There is a lot of standing on one leg to start with.

I have done a few dance classes before and I have not enjoyed them. Salsa? Tacky. Ballet? Cruel and unusual. Rock'n'roll? Humiliating. Tap? Duck to water. Sort of.

It has the best soundtrack for a start (of all the songs one might have to rewind 10 times until I get the basic steps right, Mack the Knife ain't so bad). And actually, as a jazz fiend, I found the rhythms immensely satisfying, as the little syncopated pre-taps require you to swing in the manner of Duke Ellington. It's percussive in itself, almost an instrument (trivia: the Omaha indie band Tilly and the Wall feature a tap dancer instead of a drummer).

After a few clippety-clops up the studio, looking at my reflection advance on me like a tentative elephant, I was ready for one of the signature moves from The Artist: Ba-dum CLAP! Ba-dum CLOP! Tippety-tap, step back. I fancy I'd just got the first ba-dum when our hour was over.

Tommy was encouraging. "It's really a question of muscle memory at first. Keep practising the tap step and you'll be fine."

Just one problem. I live in a first-floor flat. Though the lady downstairs seems tolerant enough.