Over all Lockyer handles about 12 hours of programming a year. It doesn't seem much for two basic channels, running 365 days of the year - just half a day a year, but he considers himself lucky, as the (outgoing) controller of BBC2, Mark Thompson, is "very very supportive of dance". He's now waiting to see what the new controller likes - "it's really at their whim. They're like the editors of newspapers, they get to choose what goes in their channel".

Commissioning dance is "very like an editorial process". Ideas are suggested, some are accepted and some rejected. Most of the dance is split between the Summer Dance season and the Christmas period, and this Christmas, they're running a Dance Night. It's a first for BBC2's themed nights, not least because most of it is newly commissioned work.

At the time of our meeting, the date, later confirmed as Monday 28 December, is still floating around the schedule, but the lineup is solid. So they know what's in it, but not when everyone can see it. It's also still in production. The incongruous pairing of Deborah Bull and Alexei Sayle are hosting it, and each is also presenting a programme. Their linking sections had still to be filmed - at the time of writing, they still haven't - so everything is running on a a tight schedule.

Bull's section is a view of the woman's role in 20th century ballet, including pas de deux by five choreographers, filmed with Adam Cooper. The extracts are: Petipa's 'Sleeping Beauty', MacMillan's 'The Invitation', Balanchine's 'Duo Concertante', Ashton's 'Two Pigeons' and Forsythe's 'Herman Schmerman'. Sayle, a former dance and drama teacher, presents a DIY guide to party dancing. "Alexei is absolutely besotted by dance, he goes dancing all the time. At this moment, he's out somewhere in north London filming his contribution."

The only archive footage is Margot Fonteyn's 'Out of the Limelight, Home in the Rain' from her 1979 'Magic of the Dance' series, including archive film of Fonteyn and Nureyev in 'Marguerite and Armand' - the filmed version that Ashton approved of, Lockyer points out.

Dance Night is not exclusively ballet, of course. Ross MacGibbon hs filmed Siobhan Davies' 'The Art of Touch', while Rosemary Lee and Peter Anderson have produced 'Infanta', the companion piece to 'Boy', an earlier piece for the BBC's Dance for the Camera series.

'Clubbing Stories' looks at clubbing and how it is an essential part of many people's lives, while 'Nussin' is a "dance mystery", set on a snowy railway and directed by Clara van Gool, whose first dance film, DV8's 'Enter Achilles' won several awards.

The night wraps up with two films 'Strictly Ballroom' and 'A Chorus Line', and is interspersed with assorted celebrities talking about their first dance lesson, and some demonstrations of the waltz, quickstep, paso doble and rumba by ballroom dancers. For nostalgia buff, both Morecambe and Wise appear, as do Torvill and Dean - Bolero, which is being repeated "got the biggest audience for dance ever on British television, if not world television". Elsewhere, BRB's 'Nutcracker Sweeties' is being broadcast on Christmas Day and 'The Snowman' on Boxing Day.

He's non-committal on the legendary costs of filming dance: "It's difficult to say. With co-producers you don't actually pay for all the costs. It depends on what you're doing. If you're going to do a full-out Sleeping Beauty, it's going to cost a lot more than four people doing 'Steptext'." He hopes that new arrangements with the Royal Opera House will make it easier to film productions, and comments that filming classical ballet is really like filming "costume drama" but without the lavish budget enjoyed by that department. On a more positive note, "there certainly is a bigger audience for dance than for opera and a much bigger audience for contemporary dance than contemporary opera."

Under the circumstances, it's a bit strange to be asking Lockyer if there's anything he would actually schedule for his dream dance programming, but he has an answer. "Giselle." He's yet to find a production that he likes sufficiently to film, but he also harbours an ambition to film Peter Wright's 'Swan Lake' for BRB. The only delay is that it's not scheduled for a while, and the Hippodrome is closing down for refurbishment. "We haven't done a 'Swan Lake' for a very long time, unless you count the AMP 'Swan Lake' which is going to be repeated next summer." But 'Giselle' is on his wishlist.

"I would love to a television or film version of 'Giselle', but I'm not sure there's a 'Giselle' around for it. Just to pick your perfect cast would be wonderful. I would love to try and do some of the great classics, but I'm not sure if that would work. I think 'Giselle' would work because it's a very contained drama but the great 19th century spectacular classics are best served from the theatre as an outside broadcast. If you take that away and try to make them more televisual, I think they then collapse, like a souffle so to speak."

He enthuses about Kenneth MacMillan's cinematic style, which he feels is far more adapted to the screen. "The bits that everyone complains about are usually there for the principals to change their costume or literally get their breath back. I'd love to have worked with him on something." But he's more optimistic about the future. "Young choreographers are more interested in making for the screen and we - the BBC or Channel 4 have got to keep on going. Dance for the camera is very successful."