''Seven Days That Shook the Spice Girls'' is a 2002 unofficial British
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
about British
girl group the
Spice Girls. The film looks at seven key moments in the band's history, including their formation, ''
Top of the Pops
''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most o ...
'' magazine giving them their nicknames, firing their manager
Simon Fuller
Simon Fuller (born 17 May 1960) is a British entrepreneur, artist manager, and film and television producer renowned for nurturing and inspiring world class entertainment talent. He is the creator of the ''Idols'' TV format, including the UK s ...
and
Geri Halliwell
Geraldine Estelle Horner (née Halliwell; born 6 August 1972) is an English singer, songwriter, author, and actress. She rose to prominence in the 1990s as Ginger Spice, a member of the girl group the Spice Girls. With over 100 million records ...
's departure.
Release
The film premiered on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
on 10 September 2002,
and was watched by an audience of 2.08 million.
Critical response
Writing for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'',
Gareth McLean thought the film was "lightweight and disposable", and did not do the "bona fide pop culture phenomenon" of the Spice Girls justice.
[ Joe Joseph of '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'' agreed that the film was insubstantial, calling it a "speedy, cost-efficient way to interleave stock library footage with quotes from DJs and showbiz journalists in order to fill gaps in the late summer schedules." ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
''s Thomas Sutcliffe felt the airing of the film on the same week as the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
was ill-timed, and described the film as "a scrappy collage of warmed-over gossip and underpowered revelation."
See also
* Spice Girls filmography
References
External links
*
*
{{Spice Girls
2002 television films
2002 films
British documentary films
Works about the Spice Girls
Documentary films about entertainers
2002 documentary films
Documentary films about women
2000s British films