David Bowie Is Happening Now

Since the unexpected death of David Bowie in January 2016, footage of the irreplaceable, epoch-straddling pop shapeshifter has become more precious. A fan's best chance of communing with his enduring legend was to catch the officially sanctioned retrospective exhibition, which won great acclaim at London's Victoria & Albert Museum in 2013 and began its subsequent world tour in Chicago in 2014. This informative walk-through film provides a necessarily remote substitute for the glory of the real thing. Curators Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh combine expertise with fandom as they guide us through the best of 300 exhibits - contact sheets, hand-scrawled lyrics, the typewritten 1965 letter confirming his name change from Jones to Bowie - with special emphasis on the exhaustive parade of original, often iconic, outfits (whose diminutive size is harder to comprehend on film). Celebrity commentators - Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto, singer Jarvis Cocker - are wheeled out at a private viewing but this only serves to make you wish you'd been there.