BBC Two head into the world of Disco

Best on the Box choice for Saturday, December 16th…

The three-part series from BBC Studios – Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution – comes to BBC Two this evening. The programme brings to screen overlooked pioneers together to tell a powerful, new revisionist history of the disco age, told by the genre’s original musicians, promoters and innovators as well as today’s musical icons.

The show tells the story of the people who forged a new form of music and dance and pioneered a social movement. Contributors include Jake Shears, Nona Hendryx (LaBelle), DJ Hollywood, Ana Matronic, David Morales, Kim Petras, Nicky Siano, Honey Dijon, Marshall Jefferson, Jessie Ware, Candi Staton, Anita Ward and Thelma Houston.

In tonight’s first edition, Rock The Boat, celebrates the earliest disco tracks and the creation of the disco beat, as it took over New York’s clubs and spread to Europe and the UK. It also explores the rise of a new power in music, the DJ, and how they helped disco break into the mainstream. The second episode, Ain’t No Stopping Us Now, traces the emergence of disco icons such as Thelma Houston, Grace Jones, Donna Summer and Candi Staton. It also looks at the phenomenon of The Bee Gees, the launch of Studio 54 and how disco went on to conquer the charts, the airwaves and the silver screen (Saturday Night Fever).

The third and final programme, I Will Survive, examines the backlash against disco and how, despite the collapse of its popularity which drove it underground, the genre went on to inspire new forms of music and once again became mainstream in the hands of a new generation of artists such as Kylie, the Scissor Sisters, Kim Petras and Jessie Ware.

Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution will be later transmitted on PBS stateside. The production was previously announced as Disco Inferno: The Sound of the Underground.

Episodes one and two air tonight from 10.05pm on BBC Two. The final episode airs next week.