Pop at the pictures: Jitterbugging

In the first of a new series, Jon Savage is trawling the archive of British Pathe newsreels to pick out pop cultural gems. He starts in the 30s with the phenomenon of jitterbuggingPathe had a long history of covering club life and dancing trends – there is an excellent series called London's Famous Clubs and Cabarets from the mid-20s – but after swing culture arrived in Britain in the late 30s, it presented this frankly staid, pre-pop newsreel with problems of tone and explication.Swing was ...

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