So, who's it going to be?

Dance after dance, we feel we've come to know these hot-footing couples who are in it to win it, and we've pinned our hopes on a favourite twosome making it through. Now, however, the time has come for another pair to leave the competition...

No, this isn't an episode of Strictly Come Dancing, it is Dance Derby, Kally Lloyd-Jones's vivid, engaging evocation of the legendary dance marathons of Depression-era America. In these long-haul endurance competitions the prize wasn't some kitsch glitter-ball trophy but dollars that could put food on the table for a destitute family, and being eliminated could actually feel like a death sentence.

Dance Derby was initially a Fringe hit for Lloyd-Jones and her Company Chordelia in 2013, and you could say this forthcoming tour is really in response to popular demand.

"It had a really short run for what was a quite a large-scale show," she says. "By the time word of mouth was going round, we'd stopped performing it. Now that I can bring it back, people have been writing to me saying 'we're coming to see it again' - and I think maybe that's because the whole dance marathon concept still resonates with us today. I've found myself thinking of TV reality shows - those 1930s dance marathons have so many similarities."

Dance Derby's origins, however, lie in another, earlier Fringe show that was a Company Chordelia collaboration with Scottish Opera. The Seven Deadly Sins brought Lloyd-Jones a Herald Angel award in 2011, and as she was researching the background for her cleverly imagined staging of the Brecht/Weill ballet-opera - she set it in the 1930s movie industry - other ideas kept surfacing, and were filed away in her mental "pending" tray.

"Anna's story [in The Seven Deadly Sins] really was the beginning," she says. "You have this woman, from a dirt-poor family, who has to do whatever she can to support them. She's a jobbing actress, a singer, a dancer - you can dress it up, make it seem glamorous, but she's really selling herself. That left me thinking about women in that Depression-era society, about how they coped, how they were so resilient, even creative, about making ends meet and supporting their families.

"Women had to become the bread-winners and it is not all that different now. There are thousands of women in low-paid jobs, facing up to the responsibility of feeding and clothing their family. Dance Derby is a reminder of how far women, and their dance partners, were willing to go."

On-stage, Lloyd-Jones recreates the very feel of a dance marathon by having an MC, a "chantoosie" and a live band, as well as five couples - and a nurse, because exhaustion, as well as blisters, saw many a couple floored and in need of medical attention.

"Audiences saw all of this," she says. "They were able to see people eating, brushing their teeth, snatching a few minutes' sleep - there was absolutely no privacy, and that was definitely part of the attraction. For me, the similarities with today's TV reality shows - like Big Brother, especially - are unavoidable. You get that very strange hybrid of real people, real stories, living something out in real time - but at the same time, it's a show, an entertainment, a manufactured product that's very manipulated. You do have to ask yourself: why do we watch?"

In Dance Derby that question certainly does tease, if not in the moment then afterwards when the last couple standing - just - are given the cash prize. By then, they've kept going for hours that stretched into non-stop days and never-ending weeks. Divide the dosh in hand by the number of hours danced and it makes today's minimum wage seem like a prince's ransom. Before then, however, all five couples have gone for broke in a mix of group trials and solo spots where the footwork, like the period details, has been thoroughly researched.

"I wanted it to be right," says Lloyd-Jones "because it actually happened. Not just in a film like They Shoot Horses Don't They, but in halls across America. That's why it's so exciting that, for this tour, I've been able to hold onto my live band, my devious MC, my glamorous singer and my nurse - because I want this to be more than just the dance, I want it to be a piece of theatre story-telling.

"I've also got eight of my original dancers back, ready to slip into the characters they helped devise - and I'm now in it myself, because even last year I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to step into those shoes, connect with those women. I'm lucky - I can dance for a living, and enjoy it. They danced to try and stay alive."

Dance Derby is at the MacRobert Centre, Stirling, tomorrow night.

Tour details from www.chordelia.co.uk