The Wigan Casino – This England
Tony Palmer’s 1977 wonderful celebration of the Northern Soul club; the Wigan Casino (part of the “This England” series of docs) for Granada TV is an incredibly bleak half hour. Obviously there’s some priceless archive from inside the club (it showed up most recently in Dance Britannia), impressive shapes being thrown all over the shop and a healthy showing of moustaches and blokes riffling through 7 inch singles in flares. So far, so obvious. Palmer, however, has intercut this with endless grey shots of the industrial north and kids hanging round bus stops. Dave Withers (the fan interviewed) is essentially giving a twenty minute lecture on social capital. Although you also get to hear the likes of Judy Street’s; What, much of the music on show is some heartbreaking/dreary (fill in as required) old english folk. Watch out for someone selling Socialist Worker – “only ten pence”.
(rarely for YouTube, this is the full 27 minute documentary in one part).
Great stuff Jem. Fascinating. I think it would be brilliant to have a ‘classics’ strand here at watchification. It would provide a really interesting counterpoint to the seven-day stuff from iPlayer.
blimey – what a smasher. good to see wigan hasn’t changed much.
you can find a bunch of the records from this over at
http://dusty7s.blogspot.com/
if you fancy a dance.
x
‘Palmer, however, has intercut this with endless grey shots of the industrial north and kids hanging round bus stops.’
Have you ever been to Wigan? Go there and try filminf something other than this!
Great stuff, will link to it on FiS
was there on 1st night sept 23rd 1973 spent some memorable nights there
remember the excitement when the cameras filmed
“this england at the casino”
and the anticipation of it going out on tv
Fascinating! Tell us more!
My Favorit Blog. Very thanks and best regards from Gerrmany. Thanks
I was fortunate enough to be in the Casino Dance final on stage, myself,Sandy Holt and another guy,We had to dance to three records, I was in the middle and just before the music was played I looked into the crowd and thought to myself wow thank you god for this truely wonderful moment in our young lives, however the best dancers were never caught on camera, and what a pity! Andy Simpson (to whom I stole my spinning techniques from) and Frank Booper, and also Frank Sanderson, so it was these guys that the Casino was all about, The customer!!! Many Thanks PCJ Fielding (Pollenca Mallorca)
thanks for sharing the video…i was looking for that classic a lot of time ago..
jan
Out of interest, I’m the someone selling Socialist Worker. Wigan had a thriving SWP presence at this time.