I n 2017, when Brett Morgen began work on his acclaimed 2022 David Bowie documentary, Moonage Daydream , he was given complete access to the late star’s entire, cavernous archive. “My eyes were immediately drawn to a stack of gleaming 35mm cans with the word ‘Stage’ written on them,” he remembers.

At first, the director – whose work also includes Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck and the Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane – assumed the cans might contain some sort of footage shot around Bowie’s 1978 live album, Stage, recorded in mostly in Philadelphia. However, he soon realised they actually contained the holy grail of Bowie artefacts: footage of the legendary Earl’s Court shows later that year, which had remained unseen for almost 50 years.…