This collection examines Blackpool, Britains first and largest working-class seaside resort as a location for the production and consumption of British film and popular music, and the meaning of Blackpool in films and songs.  It examines representation of Blackpool in films such asHindle Wakes,A Taste of Honey,Bhaji on the Beach,Away,Bobs Weekend, The Harry Hill Movie and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, linking it to the concepts of heterotopia, purgatory, fantasy, simulacra and the carnivalesque. It also presents music in Blackpool through the history of its venues and examines development of punk and grime music in this seaside town. The authors argue that Blackpool in filmic and musical texts often stands for British culture, but increasingly for culture which is remembered or imagined rather than present and real.

Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She has published over twenty monographs and edited collections on film and popular music. They includeHeading North: The North of England in Film and Television (Palgrave, 2017) andSounds Northern: Popular Music, Culture and Place in Englands North (2018).

Chapter One: Introduction.  Ewa Mazierska, University of Central Lancashire.- Chapter Two:  Behind the Façade: the liminal, margins, and the social shifts of cultural production in Blackpool grime. Dr. Adam de Paor-Evans, University of Central Lancashire.- Chapter Three:  Blackpool grime and Brexit how Little T became the Norths biggest pop star.  Dr. Kamila Rymajdo, freelance journalist and cultural commentator.- Chapter Four:  Punk in Blackpool. Philip Smith, Record Collector and Universal Records correspondent.- Chapter Five:  Blackpool Rock 1967-c.1975 (working title).  Dr. Pete Atkinson, University of Central Lancashire.- Chapter Six:  Blackpool music venues 1960s to the present day.  Colin Appleby, music promoter.- Chapter Seven:  Travelling to and through Blackpool: Female Subjectivity and Social Realism inHindle Wakes(1927),A Taste of Honey(1961),andBhaji on the Beach(1993).  Dr. Cecilia Mello, University of Sao Paolo.- Chapter Eight:  A Long Weekend In Purgatory: Blackpool inAway andBobs Weekend.  Chad Bentley, University of Sheffield.- Chapter Nine:  Blackpool Fantasy Film and the Contemporary Dilemmas for Blackpool.  Professor Ewa Mazierska, University of Central Lancashire.