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Lucy Mangan is dazzled by the sequins and spangles in a riveting disco documentary
You forget, sometimes, that almost everything had to be invented somewhere, at some point, by someone. Computers and stuff, obviously. But windows, too. And chimney breasts and denim. Even carpet tiles weren't an accident but the product of someone's (diseased) mind. And, far more beneficially for mankind, somebody invented disco. Last night's The Joy of Disco (BBC4) documented its development – from its roots in the gay and black underground clubs in late 1960s America, and its emergence in hedonistic lockstep with the rise of gay liberation, to its full-blown arrival, in the hands of MFSB, the in-house musicians at Philadelphia Records.
After a mass of sequined, spangled archive footage, Earl Young, the MFSB drummer back in the day, showed us how he invented the beat. This on the bass, that on the snare, a touch of the cymbal here and (just) there. And suddenly there it was: the background to the background of all the best bits of your life. "And that," said Young simply, "is how disco started."
It was a brilliant moment in a film stuffed with them – partly by virtue of its subject matter, mostly by virtue of the fact that no one had allowed disco's inherent frivolousness to detract from the serious business of properly delineating its evolution and social history.
After that, the film took us through the UK experience, from northern soul to Brian Curtis and Ian Levine's transformation of Blackpool Mecca into our own disco inferno, as well as the proliferation of new labels and new clubs; and, along the way, we heard from original Studio 54 regular Rollerena, who looks to be still living in disco's heyday. Then there came the inevitable backlash, culminating in riots in Chicago. It even, thanks to the Guardian's own Alexis Petridis, dealt with the coruscating madness that was Boney M. "Rasputin," he said thoughtfully, "was like One Direction making a record about Stalin."
A glorious programme about glorious music. More, more, more!
