Wednesday, 28th April
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
An eclectic evening of shorts and archive clips, part of a programme of events at Loughborough University exploring music in the work-place.
Tonight’s ‘main feature’ is Joe the Chainsmith (dir: Philip Donnellan, 1958), a BBC portrait of hard-living, whippet-racing, chain-bashing Joe Mallen and the Black Country town of Cradley Heath. As with many of Donnellan’s documentaries, traditional song plays an important role in the film. Chasing the Blues (Chambers/Ellitt, 1947) is a chirpy little short which uses jazz and animation to encourage factory-owners to look after their employees, while from the same year The Miner’s Song features the impressive larynx of James Ovington - “we sing our song as we trudge along.”
Moving with the times we have some handy hints on customer service filmed at Boots in Loughborough in 1960, a safety video gone horribly wrong in Forklift Driver Klaus (dir: Prehn/Wagner, 2000) and yet more singing miners; a 1984 sequence from Central TV shows how the miners strike split pub rock group Garrison Lane down the middle.
Venue: Martin Hall, Loughborough University, Epinal Way, LE11 3TU
