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A Northern Soul - BBC Radio 4 Drama Wed 18th Feb 2015

old scores are settled about class, music and identity.

By Mike in News Archives
Updated on 08 Apr 2019 · Published 11 Feb 2015

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A Northern Soul - BBC Radio 4 Drama Wed 18th Feb 2015 magazine cover

Thanks to Shelly for the heads up post via the status shouts

A Northern Soul Drama BBC Radio 4

45 mins

Wed 18th February 14:15hrs

on BBC iplayer after the broadcast

Two men settle old scores, 35 years after their involvement in the Northern Soul scene.

It's 1978 and the Northern Soul scene is at its peak. UK Manufacturing is thriving, Unions are strong, and blue-collar labourers have money in their pockets. Working class black Americans have moved from the Deep South to work in the car factories of Detroit and what has emerged from them is a new kind of soul music - upbeat, rhythmic and aspirational. British car factory workers have also found that the music's mood and rhythm speaks for them and Northern Soul has become an exclusive music and dance scene with its own code and culture, focussing on Friday all-nighters.

Mark, a 17-year-old, middle class lad, gets his first job - in a car factory in Wolverhampton. Super cool factory worker Jerry introduces him to Northern Soul and Mark is hooked. He wants to be a part of it - the music, clothes, and all-nighters. Winning Jerry's friendship, he asks to go to Wigan Casino, voted the best club in the world - but Jerry questions Mark's authenticity and is undecided whether to take him.

Thirty-five years later and Mark, now a married father and a journalist living in London, interviews Jerry about the end of the Northern Soul scene. For Jerry, the memories recall a tainted time of union power and working class freedoms confronted by the rise of the political right. For Mark, the memories hold emotional confusions. Buried hurts resurface between the two men and old scores are settled about class, music and identity.

Writer: Hattie Naylor

Director: Marc Jobst

 

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.



Edited by mike

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Guest Byrney

"Thirty-five years later and Mark, now a married father and a journalist living in London, interviews Jerry about the end of the Northern Soul scene."

 

Thanks for the heads up Mike. I'll listening - if only to find when this end of the Northern scene was... What's the odds on it being December 1981?

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Dean

Winning Jerry's friendship, he asks to go to Wigan Casino, voted the best club in the world - but Jerry questions Mark's authenticity and is undecided whether to take him.

 

Brings it all back to me, the authenticity test before you got on the bus.

 

Has anyone ever fallen out over northern soul?

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purist

I'm all for a bit of artistic licence, but trouble is  these fictionalised versions become the accepted truth (like when Americans alter the facts when making 2nd world war films about tales of heroism by british forces, and in the film it's all about US servicemen who probably hadn't even joined in the war yet)
So with pedantic tongue firmly in cheek, and strictly for purposes of accuracy - I think Turner's were the last to cease actual car production, in 1966, althought the Clyno and most of the other car manufacturers stopped in 1929 or before, although a proud tradition (starting in 1884, we had Thomas Parker building cars) Wolverhampton didn't have a car factory when Wigan was open
   :sleep3:

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Mark S

The upside of this is that if Joe Public think its all over then they might leave the rest of us to get on with it .

You can trust the beeb they gave us the One show

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Guest Byrney

Oh my..., who advised them on this? I don't know where to start... But the end of Northern Soul started in 78 and finished arly 80s. Who'd have predicted that :)

To be honest I was working whilst listening to it, was bored sh56eless so might have missed something.

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Maark

I'm sure that was a Robert Wyatt track the play finished with which seemed an odd choice for a play about northern soul. I enjoyed it in parts but (and I  admit I wasn't giving it my full attention, maybe for the same reason as others) I wondered what the hell was going on at others.

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MikeHinNewJersey

I didn't think that the play was about Northern Soul as such. It was more about the rise of Thatcher, the class struggle, the loss of manufacturing industry, the breaking of the unions, etc. The use of "Shipbuilding" at the end made perfect sense to me.

 

Oh, and it was about Mark getting his suede jacket back years later. :)

 

And I learned that there are no elves in Wolverhampton. :D

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Frankie Crocker

Just played this back...can't believe the BBC have the nerve to peddle such tripe. Not sure how the sound track fitted with the dialogue. All in all, a complete waste of time, effort and license payers money. Would still like the mole at the Beeb to be unmasked...anyone any idea who is stuffing Northern Soul into every other advert, link, programme, jingle whatever opportunity arises?

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Steve S 60

Just played this back...can't believe the BBC have the nerve to peddle such tripe. Not sure how the sound track fitted with the dialogue. All in all, a complete waste of time, effort and license payers money. Would still like the mole at the Beeb to be unmasked...anyone any idea who is stuffing Norhern Soul into every other advert, link, programme, jingle whatever opportunity arises?

The mole was active today......Toni Lamarr played on the Graham Norton Show.

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dedji1955

Just played this back...can't believe the BBC have the nerve to peddle such tripe. Not sure how the sound track fitted with the dialogue. All in all, a complete waste of time, effort and license payers money. Would still like the mole at the Beeb to be unmasked...anyone any idea who is stuffing Northern Soul into every other advert, link, programme, jingle whatever opportunity arises?

 

The mole was active today......Toni Lamarr played on the Graham Norton Show.

The BBC also have the Radio 6 Festival tonight in Newcastle 5 till 10.30 in Newcastle with Richard Searling, Ady Croasdell, Stuart Maconie, Elaine Constantine and Craig Charles

 

https://www.getintonewcastle.co.uk/whats-on/events/radio-6-music-festival-2015/

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