Neville Staple

Documentary tracing the history of the Two Tone record label which emerged in the late 1970s, the bands linked to it and their musical influences, and its place at the fore of promoting multi-cultural music and concepts and the Ska music revival.

When the innocence of youth culture collides with the skepticism and sensationalism of mass media. Celebrates the life of punk and the true motivators of the original scene, now seen on camera with their legendary stories of how it all began. The teenage youth of the 80’s, whose bigger goal was racial harmony and speaking up against the oppressive establishment. Fighting for a life that’s worth having, as there were no jobs, and utilized music as a way of life and the uniforms set them apart. However, this uniform also made them a target for the media.

Beverley is a short film written and directed by Alexander Thomas and produced by Cass Pennant and starring Vicky McClure and Laya Lewis. It follows the identity struggles of a mixed-race teenager who moves to white suburbia. Her fight to fit in with the local gang leads to devastating consequences.

The story of how 2 Tone, a record label from Coventry went on to have a global impact. The brainchild of Jerry Dammers saw dance music with a message dominate the charts from 1979.

The English ska band, The Specials, perform live in the RTBF studio in Brussels, Belgium.

Rocksteady to both a visual and musical documentary of the big shots of the English 2-Tone movement of the late 1970s that has the exhaustive, high-energy performances exploding onto stage. Jump, shout, twist and crawl and dance to the tunes of Ska and its anthems of its rough riders and three-minute heroes captivated in the moment of a generation of England's concrete jungles and razor blade alleys. No longer on your radio but now on stage, together, with the likes of Madness, The Specials and The Beat et al, this concert footage of an era is a must-see, rare and fascinating look into a once vibrant youth culture of working-class England and its musical dance craze.

The student-taunting Specials perform at the Colchester Institute in 1979, playing hits such as Rat Race, Too Much Too Young and Gangsters, throwing tambourines at the bouncers and indulging in a little moon-stomping during a stage invasion.

Adrian Thrills investigates a new and exhilarating musical blend which is taking the country by storm. 2-tone is a unique mix of music, fusing together reggae, rock, soul, ska, blue beat and punk. With its home in Coventry and its roots in reggae, it derives its name and identity from the co-existence of its black and white members.

Organized by Paul McCartney and the United Nations, these concerts were in response to the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge’s reign, where three million persons perished in Cambodia. During the concerts, McCartney brought three generations of popular musicians together. The older generation included McCartney and the Wings, The Who and members of Procol Harum. The middle generation was represented by Queen and members of Led Zeppelin. Most notably, there was the new generation of mainly New Wavers and Punk Rockers, such as The Pretenders, Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, The Clash, and The Specials.

Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.