Introduction

Rock ‘n’ roll had attracted little attention from the major national daily newspapers prior to mid- 1956; with the exception of a few articles in the Daily Mirror which highlighted the gradual spread of the American trend to Britain, there was scant coverage of the genre in the press. Bill Haley's music had featured prominently in Blackboard Jungle, a sensationally violent film depicting American high school life, which had been screened in British cinemas in 1955. However, while more controversial than the markedly innocuous Rock Around the Clock, it caused neither widespread consternation nor any significant reported disruption in Britain. Those incidents of unrest, vandalism and violence which occurred in and around cinemas the following year during screenings of Rock Around the Clock were, thus, principally responsible for bringing the music to the attention of the press and, correspondingly, to elements of the wider public.

Although, while ongoing, these disturbances clearly inspired much feverishly anxious coverage within various newspapers, by late September, reports of trouble, or of arrests or convictions, connected to the film screenings began to fade and, finally, to disappear altogether. This was, to an extent, only natural, as the film had largely reached the end of its circulation period in British cinemas – furthermore, since it had been so widely banned by this time, its potential for ‘causing’ further trouble had been considerably limited by authorities. Police and local councils had also increasingly prepared themselves for trouble as the reports of unrest had intensified. When the film was screened in a Cleveleys cinema in December 1956, the Guardian reported that Alsatian dogs had patrolled the premises; perhaps unsurprisingly, given such security, ‘no [significant] trouble’ was observed. The timing of the incidents also contributed to their perceived significance; they were, undoubtedly, eventually eclipsed by turbulent events unfolding in the wider world, and particularly by the Suez Crisis.

Although, prior to the autumn of 1956, rock ‘n’ roll would have been familiar to some adults – particularly those with teenage children – the stories of the cinema ‘riots’ constituted the first occasion on which the music became headline news, and was purposely brought to the attention of the British public by the press. This initial flurry of sensational interest was certainly short- lived. Rock ‘n’ roll did reappear occasionally in the headlines in late 1956 and early 1957.