Northern Soul

This is a movie to immerse yourself in, to lose yourself in, to get into the groove of. It's tremendous in the way that you plunge headlong into some sweaty dj-dysfunction, and the perils of the needle, whilst laughing almost all the way. The main protagonist develops quite a set of pecs over the duration, we all said we felt like dancing afterwards, this is an energetic film.

But it's carefully shot, wonderfully acted, beautifully sounding, reportage of the scene and all the better for it, with some quite superb performances as a result. You will have the time of your life. Enjoy.

Firstly, it's helpful to have watched the recent BBC4 documentary about Northern Soul. It's obvious to see that the film's director - who appeared in the documentary - made the film to bring the story of Northern Soul to the big screen. As such, the music, the style, the dance halls, and the dancing are the prime focus of the film, with the fictional drama and characters being of a secondary concern, and it feels they only exist on which to present the phenomenon of Northern Soul, least of all the drugs use which accompanied it.

It's a pity that not the same amount of effort was put towards the drama aspect of the film as was put towards the music, the fashions, and the dancing, as it would then have felt a more cohesive whole, but it's churlish to pick such faults in what is otherwise an most enjoyable film. Naturally, the added bonus is the soul music, even though its brilliance does tend to outshine other aspects of the film. The local indie cinema in which I watched it this pm (October 17th) was fully booked for the entire week that they're showing this film, which goes to show it's been highly anticipated. Recommended.

Topic was a good excuse to make a movie. It is a very interesting time in the British music world. The plot seems choppy with the characters fighting, swearing and drugging their brains out, I guess it portrays British working society as very gritty, dingy, and inspirationally bleak. They need to be lifted up and find a refuge in the obscure soul music from America. The movie doesn't flow well, maybe due to all the violence the characters are caught up in. Dialog, plot all of it weak, but captures the essence of the era in the look and feel quite well and the characterization of working class youth going nowhere. There was an amazing radio show on CITR at one time called "Shake a Tailfeather" that played all of this northern soul, but it seemed to have come to an end, don't know what happened to the DJ or show. Anyways it is a movie tackling an obscure time in music history, worth watching.

This was a long time coming and rumours that it was going straight to DVD point to the level of expectations by the industry and producers. Thankfully the film largely delivers .. and the Soul fraternity pushed the distribution industry into showing it . it certainly portrays the sense of excitement and adrenalin that came with the scene. Sadly by the time the lead characters get to Wigan they become emersed in a drug fuel binge and feuds and rather dark , rather than celebrating the joys of embracing such a powerful force . The female characters are sadly rather superficial but there is no denying the quality of the new young acting talent. As a committed Soulie for over 20 years I loved it .. but Im biased. I so much wanted the general public to embrace this film in the way they did with ... say The Commitments , sadly Im not sure they will. There will always be arguments about the sound track..personally I would have liked a touch more diversity and some Jackie Wilson,Major Lance ,.Congratulations Elaine on getting more recognition for one of the few truly grass roots led music scenes often overlooked in this country.

Before the emergence of the house and rave music scenes in the late 80's, there was Northern Soul. This phenomenon happened in the north of England where several clubs emerged where DJs played obscure American soul records. It may not sound like much now but I am guessing it meant a lot back in the mid 70's, particularly when you take into account the state of music in Britain at the time. Watch re-runs of Top of the Pops if you need proof that popular music in the UK was pretty dire on the whole at the time. These northern soul clubs offered up something energetic and joyous. From the perspective of today when everybody can get access to any music at the click of a button, it's amazing to think that some of the songs back in the day only existed on one solitary record owned by one DJ; so if you wanted to hear it, you had to go to see his set. The competition between DJs became intense but sadly such a retro scene was always going to have a finite existence because eventually there were no more obscure soul records left to find. Its details like these that I find most interesting about the northern soul movement, a music scene I am too young to remember.

The film itself is strongest in its early stages when it focuses on the music scene more. It's such a specific phenomenon, it's fascinating in itself. Unfortunately, it does lose steam a bit in the second half as it concentrates more on the inevitable dramatic down-side that the narrative in these types of films seem to demand. In truth it's not entirely unreasonable to broach the subject of drug abuse as by all accounts a few northern soul fans died as a result of this and the scene was fuelled to a large extent by narcotics just as the dance music scene of the last twenty-five years has also. It additionally portrays 70's Britain as a beige hell, with fashions, haircuts and décor all of a remarkably appalling standard; in fact everything seems to lack any joy at all, aside from the music itself. But there is much humour in the script to alleviate the grim state of affairs somewhat and the young cast do good work alongside a selection of well-knowns including James Lance, Ricky Tomlinson, John Thomson, Lisa Stansfield and Steve Coogan. All-in-all, Northern Soul has a fairly generic story-line but it is made more interesting on account of the interesting scene it is based around.