Jonny vs Dance Dance Revolution - raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support

Latest in a long line of questionable ideas, on the 28th of February 2026 I'm playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution in support of Macmillan Cancer Support.

A couple of years ago my mum passed away following complications from cancer. During a long stay in hospital our family were given endless support, sympathy and kindness from the Macmillan team. It is somewhat cursed that such a service is sustained only by donations rather than being centrally funded, so I'd really like to do something to give back a tiny fraction of what we were given when we really needed it.

What

Dance Dance Revolution is a videogame played by stepping on pads in time with music. If you hit enough of the pads in time with the song, you'll pass! My goal is to clear 100 songs on the 28th of February. To put that in context, the average song I'll be attempting has about 3-400 steps in; the average marathon, walked or ran, takes around 50,000 steps. Throw in a few retries and we're not far off. It's a lot of effort...

It should be noted that I am pretty terrible at this game, and Entirely Too Old For This Kind Of Thing; I don't think I've played 100 songs on this game in my entire life so this could go south pretty quickly!

...what

This is where your support comes in! I'm going to randomly generate a list of songs to play the day before the event; but if we raise enough I'll commit to doing the same number of songs but on a harder difficulty. Let's:

up to £250 - songs chosen from difficulty 8 and 9

£251 to £500 - songs chosen from difficulty 9 and 10

£501 to £750 - songs chosen from difficulty 10 and 11

£751+ uhhh

So the last time I tried anything harder than an 11 I had to revise it in advance, it took about eight tries and I needed several days to recover, so let's not do that. How about if we break £750 I'll chop off two foot worth of my beard too just to really round things off. If you hate my beard that much, donate £40 (and be available in North London on the 28th of February) and I'll let you cut the stupid thing off yourself.

WHAT

We'll be playing from about 1200 to 2200 at FreePlayCity, a fantastic rhythm and fighting game arcade in the north of London (near Manor House on the Piccadilly Line, and Haringey Green Lanes on the Suffragette Line). Come along and give us your support in person! If you can't, we're also planning to stream the event on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/pfcatfpc for anyone who can't make it.

Several of us are undertaking Dance Dance Revolution challenges on the day - please check out our Fundraising Team on JustGiving for info on their fundraising and causes!