Watchification » granada http://watchification.com Sun, 31 May 2009 21:50:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 The Wigan Casino – This England http://watchification.com/2008/02/24/the-wigan-casino-this-england/ http://watchification.com/2008/02/24/the-wigan-casino-this-england/#comments Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:40:05 +0000 jemstone http://watchification.com/2008/02/24/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).

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