The Casablanca: The Club That Changed Our Lives

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BBC Radio Wales - The Casablanca: The Club That Changed Our Lives

How Tiger Bay nightclub the Casablanca became the most diverse club in the UK.

How the Casablanca Club, a black-owned night club in Cardiff’s docklands, became a magnet for people from all walks of life, and changed people's lives in the 70s and 80s.

Presented by former disco dancing champion and boxer turned soul singer, Noah Francis Johnson whose father, Frankie was a manager at the Casablanca Club. Noah uncovers how and why this edgy club in a former church in the heart of  Tiger Bay attracted people of every shade of skin colour. 

It was a standing joke that the pigeons roosting in the roof were permanently stoned and when part of the floor collapsed, it didn't stop the dancing. Leroy Ingram remembers how the locals welcomed everyone, but woe betide anyone who caused trouble. In the 1970's, teenager Andrée Morgan-Andrews introduced Malaysian sailors to the Casablanca, they'd docked in ports the world over but had never experienced anything like it. The bands were as diverse as the punters, Maxi Priest, Spandau Ballet, Musical Youth, Van Morrison, Jimmy Ruffin to name but a few, as well as local talent.  'Cass' one of the DJ's, tells how his playlists would jump from one musical genre to another yet kept the dance floor heaving.  

In the Rhondda, Cheryl Terry borrowed her mum's car to take her mates to the Casablanca, she never told mum they were heading down the docks because back then the area was branded as dangerous. Welsh language rock icon Geraint Jarman fell in love with reggae at the Casablanca and it became his second home. Mali Evans from rural Wales got a job behind the bar and felt she'd become part of a very special family. So was this unique nightclub ahead of its time? Multiculturalism was not the agenda of the club, it was  driven by love of  music and the need to make money, yet life-changing relationships were made at the Casablanca without anyone having to make a big effort, or an institution or the state rolling-out diversity policies!

Producer Chris Rushton,  Gritty Productions

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