Cum on Feel the Podcazt! This week Pop Screen celebrates the festive period with a band who, without a sleigh bell in earshot, conjure up the spirit of Christmas. It can only be Slade, who got debutant director Richard Loncraine to make their one and only feature film, the oft-mistitled (not least by us) Flame, in 1975. Despite being released at the height of their popularity, it wasn’t a hit – so much so that Mick, this week’s co-host, heard the album a ridiculous 46 years prior to actually sitting down and watching the film.
Flame, though, has found plenty of keepers since that initially unsuccessful release, not least Mark Kermode, who described it as “the Citizen Kane of rock musicals”. On this episode of Pop Screen, we discuss all aspects of the film, including its position as yet another unexpectedly downbeat 1970s British rock movie, Slade’s relationship to glam rock as a movement, the fact that this was very nearly going to be a spoof of a classic science fiction franchise, the multiple comebacks Slade enjoyed in the 1980s and 1990s, and which of Loncraine’s later films would be improved by Noddy Holder.
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