Northern Soul: Still Burning

For a while, this is quite an interesting documentary on the growth of "Northern" soul in England's North West and of the rise of the now famous Wigan Casino as an all-night venue where thousands of regulars from all over the country gathered to dance to some hitherto unheard American imports whilst fuelled by some booze and amphetamines. With contributions from fans, music executives and the legendary pirate/BBC DJ Tony Blackburn (aka "Lenny Gamble") this tells us something of the grass-roots growth of this phenomena and, ultimately, of the commercialism that led to it's decline as an event-driven entertainment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is precious little archive of their nocturnal antics - indeed, the only film crew to ever have made it past the door was from Granada Television in the early 1970s and even they had to make some compromises on the lighting so as not to disturb the unconvinced party-goers. This paucity of actuality means that the archive isn't particularly extensive and so over ninety minutes, we do see the same footage more than once and that contributes to an overall feeling that this is just a bit too long. It has the look of one of the BBCs "Arena" style of documentaries that could easily have been condensed down by half, reducing some of the constant stream of vox-pop chatter that focusses more on the causes of it's rise in some of post-industrial England's more poverty-stricken towns and not at all on the music that drove it. It could also have done with a reputable narrator to put a little more meat on the bones, especially as the bubble started to burst. Essentially, this is a music documentary that's short on music and long on something that is really pretty niche, and I'm afraid that I had rather lost interest by the conclusion.