Pas de deux

The splendour of Blackpool Tower ballroom provides a backdrop to Vanessa Toulmin and Philip Esler, chief executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Professor Toulmin, research director of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield, received £178,000 from the AHRC for a project on the history of fairground, music hall, circus and seaside entertainments and the revitalisation of Blackpool's entertainment and cultural industries. Blackpool Council contributed a further £25,000 to the project.