In Everybody in The Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992, Deller explores the socio-political history and contemporary legacy of rave culture in the UK and what has become known as the ‘Second Summer of Love’. Taken from a real-life lecture he delivered to a class of A-level Politics students, Deller intercuts archive footage, testimony, political theory and instances of historical and international solidarities to illustrate his telling of this significant cultural movement. From the genesis of house music in the gay clubs of Chicago and Detroit, through to the early sound systems of British-Caribbean communities across England, we arrive at Acid House, a short-lived counter-cultural phenomenon that transcended its anarchic origins and entered rave music into mainstream consciousness.

Deller contextualizes this history against a modern history of post-war Britain, and specifically against the backdrop of the Miners’ strike. It is posited that the inclusivity of this new music - and the liberatory drug culture that ran in parallel - offered a much-needed opportunity for collective catharsis. Ultimately, the film argues that what we see in this analysis of rave culture, is a revolutionary moment, driven by music and people, that rebutted the stagnation of cultural production in a society constrained by boundaries of class, identity, and geography. We see communities, in solidarity, in the face of political adversity, taking matters into their own hands and indelibly changing the future.