all singing, all dancing

English

Etymology

From the advertising posters used to promote the 1929 film The Broadway Melody – Hollywood’s first all-talking musical (as opposed to partially talking, partially silent) – which proclaimed the film to be “All Talking All Singing All Dancing” – see film poster. In full, the poster reads:

METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER’S
ALL TALKING ALL SINGING ALL DANCING
PICTURE
THE BROADWAY MELODY

Adjective

all singing, all dancing (not comparable)

1. Having many features, options or extras; sometimes used ironically to imply that the added features are just gimmicks.
   • 2020 July 29, Christian Wolmar, “Why this crisis calls for a railway crusade like no other”, in Rail, page 44:

     This is why we need a major relaunch of the railways. Not some half-hearted campaign such as "Britain runs on rail", but an all out, all-singing, all-dancing campaign to get people to use the railways again: to rediscover the benefits of train travel and learn to trust them once again.

Alternative forms

• all-singing, all-dancing; all-singing-and-dancing

See also

• bells and whistles

References

• “all-singing, all-dancing”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.