HEATWAVE

 Heatwave is an uplifting & joyful coming of age dance drama about a group of multiracial, Soul music obsessed, working class kids and a rookie DJ from Essex who, during a 1976 London heatwave as stifling as the society around them, refuse to toe the line. Pushing open the doors of Zodiacs!, a seedy Soho nightclub long past its prime, they challenge the status quo by defiantly coming together to dance while inadvertently influencing the trajectory of British fashion, music, dance & club culture along with their own lives.

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Set in London, in 1976, during a heatwave as stifling as the world around them, a multiracial group of Soul Music obsessed teenagers dare to be different.

 

When Zodiacs!, a seedy basement club in Soho promotes a summer Soul music dance contest the kids venture across the tracks, dodging the police, the Skins, the Teds and even the Dreads, to get in on the action and compete for the cash prize.

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Without consent from senior management, a rogue rookie DJ opens the doors to a diverse clientele and black, white, gay and straight come together to dance to the music they crave; black American Soul. The scene is a massive vibe and as the summer heatwave rolls on Zodiacs! becomes a mecca for the audacious Soul Dance scene.

 

As the final dance-off competition looms, the kids are high on hope and sexual awakenings.

Like the recent surge of butterflies unfolding magically around them they are transformed by a nascent sense of self confidence, personal power and new possibilities. 

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Soon Autumn draws in and the rain pours down and outside forces conspire to close the party down.

The working-class friends are pushed back to Londons margins but never again will they see their world in the same way.

 

This six-part series traces the group as their young lives intersect the gritty politics of race, class & gender, in a 1970s Britain on the brink of Thatcherism that was still coming to terms with multiculturalism and sexual freedoms.