(Feeling Fucking) Fabulous in Blackpool

Like many others1, MEEK’s Fabulous has been stuck on-loop in my head for most of this year. What a fucking banger of a track, amirite?

And yet… somehow, today was the first time I figured I’d watch the music video. If you’ve not seen it (or perhaps not even heard the song), go do that now; I’ll wait.

The outdoor shots start about 20 seconds in, and… they’re instantly-recognisable by what they aren’t.

They aren’t London, where singer-songwriter Georgia Meek hails from, that’s for sure.

A partially-boarded up and heavily-graffitied residential street with unmaintained peeling paint, in front of which a woman in an enormous red dress walks.
You don’t get this level of deprivation in the South. Also, I’m pretty sure the director must’ve deliberately flung the tail-end scratchings from a crisp packet into the road to get those seagulls to play ball.

You probably know from the title of this blog post, but the filming location MEEK and her team chose is… Blackpool!

That first outdoor shot is opposite Pier Street Car Park.2

Now dressed in a leopardprint pantsuit and red furry hat, the singer walks down a narrow street, paved over cobblestones, while an organist plays on one side and a man walks his dog on the other.
The music video winds its way around a few streets in the town centre: this one’s distinctively-badly paved-over cobblestones makes it clear it’s the East end of Pier Street. Oh; and I gather that the guy with the dog was just a random passer-by who Meek collared and got to sign a release and just recruited for the video, then and there. Badass.

The music video goes indoors, continuing – nay, increasing – how fabulously queer-and-glam it is, through a theatre and arcade/bingo hall3. Eventually, it hits and a series of fast food establishments cumulating in Feast About.

At nighttime, a woman in a wispy and feathery white dress stands outside Feast About Fast Food on a street corner, with illuminated Blackpool Tower just visible over the rooftops.
It’s easy enough to line up the tower with The Strand to find this location, even if the named shops didn’t give it away. We’re on the opposite corner of the block from Ma Kelly’s now, and just around the corner from Garlands (if you’re looking for a cheap drink and a drag show) and The Flying Handbag (where my 18th birthday party‘s pub crawl began).

Then there’s some faster and blurrier videography, but it’s clearly the Golden Mile, where she’s heading South and… hey, wait… is this music video actually shot in a geographically-sound order? So far, she seems to have moderately-consistently been moving South through the roads about one or two streets back from the Promenade, from a little North of the North Pier down towards the Central Pier…

Model camels race across a desert at a sideshow stall, while a woman wearing a red strapped dress over a tracksuit sings energetically.
Half-way down the Golden Mile, this carnival game looks distinctly like the Camel Derby at Coral Island: you can see it photographed from a definitive angle in this review post!

Anyway; after her party night out, she finds her way to a late-night chippy, as you do.

She’s still heading South… which makes me think that the ruined steps she’s seen sitting on for literally three seconds might be somewhere between Coral Island and the Crispy Cod. Anybody know?

In a red poofy dress, a woman sits alone in a blue-lit fish and chip shop, as seen through the window, at night.
You don’t need my help with this one, but here it is anyway.

Anyway, the bottom line is that this music video was – surprisingly but delightfully – set in the area of… what might be the gayest pub crawl in the UK. Which, on top of this already awesome song, leaves me… feeling fucking fabulous.

Footnotes

1 Especially those in queer or adjacent spaces, obvs.

2 Pier Street and York Street Car Park’s are a comfortable walk from Ma Kelly’s Cabaret Bar, which – and I’m less-certain about this one – might be the host of some of the interior shots from the music video. Anyway, if you go around the corner in Google Street View you’ll find Higgitts Arcade and Burger Bar, which – just trust me and go look at it – is the most-Blackpool thing imaginable.

3 I’m almost-certain the arcade is the Higgitts, which I mentioned previously because of its proximity to an earlier shot!

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2 comments

  1. saraaaaargh saraaaaargh says:

    it’s brilliant! Been on my playlist for a while. Fab to see this about the video too 😅

  2. Dan Q Dan Q says:

    As soon as I posted, I realised where I’d seen one of the indoor scenes before! The bit from around 54 seconds onwards with the stage is clearly Funny Girls: you can see the stage’s distinctive curtain-edge-lighting and speaker positions in the video in this review.

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