Top of the Pops 14 August 1986

Presented by Chris Arnsby. [10] It Bites: Calling All The Heroes. Simon Bates. “It's Thursday night. It's Studio 6. And it's time for Top of the Pops. Here's It Bites with Calling All The Heroes.”

Solo hosts are the great new innovation of 1986. If by innovation you mean going back to an idea last used in 1983 which I do, fortunately. Lots of great things from 1983 should make a comeback; the Moonwalk, Octopussy, Clover spreadable butter, Raiders of the Pops Charts, the Oric-1, those keyrings which beep when you whistle; who keeps hiding my keys? Solo hosts are the great new innovation of 1986 but it's it's not an idea Top of the Pops immediately leapt upon with great abandon. There are 52 editions of Top of the Pops in 1986 (surprisingly) and only18 with one host. Mike Smith, Mr TV himself, clocks in with the most, 9; Gary Davies with 5; followed by Janice Long, 3; and Simon Bates with this, his solo effort. Which is odd, because he's the only one on the list to have solo hosting experience from the pre-1983 days. Gary Davies is a bit of a surprise but someone upstairs likes him. He was chosen to relaunch the solo host format, which at the time made me purse my lips and invoke the spirit of Sergeant Wilson, “do you think that's wise Michael Hurll?” But yes, apparently Michael Hurll did think this was wise and he's gone on to become one of the senior hosts since his first appearance in 1982.

 

In fact, gaze into your crystal ball, and look ahead to the crazy days and nights of 1987. There are 53 (!) weeks of Top of the Pops and the solo hosting scores change to Gary Davies,10; Mike Smith, 8; Simon Bates, still only 1; but he's not last any more because Janice Long has given up. (And, while we're observing the terrors of the future, check out October 1987 which becomes Gary Davies month. And, what's going on in January 1987? Gary Davies solo hosts the first two shows, then it's Mike Smith's turn, then Steve Wright and Gary Davies, and then Mike Smith by himself again. Were all the other Radio One DJs on strike?)

Anyway, It Bites turn in a likeable and upbeat performance and I'm surprised they never appeared on Top of the Pops again. (John- When a film version is made of the novel I’m working on this is the song that will accompany the opening sequence.)

Simon Bates “Calling All The Heroes. Now, when Lionel Richie was talking about his new video for Dancing On The Ceiling he wanted the same look that Fred Astaire got in his old nineteen fifties movies. So he employed... Stanley Donen, the bloke who directed those movies to direct this video.”

[18] Lionel Richie. On video. Simon Bates' infodump is 98% factually accurate. I've knocked off a couple of points because Stanley Donen didn't direct “those movies,” he only directed one, but that one was Royal Wedding in which Fred Astaire does indeed dance on the ceiling.

[4] Anita Dobson: Anyone Can Fall In Love. This song got skipped on my first rewatch in the front room (comfortable sofa, nice telly, cat, slippers, etc, you get the idea). Why did I skip it? The cat's nerves are already shot because of the weird noises the foxes make in the back garden. More importantly, it's the summer and the windows are wide open (which makes the fox noises worse, admittedly). I've also been watching series 24 of Doctor Who on blu-ray so my neighbours have already been exposed to the synthesised parping of Keff McCulloch. If they start hearing Anita Dobson and Chris De Burgh as well they'll chase me out of town with flaming torches.

Look, I remember this performance from 1986. Surely that's enough? Don't make me watch this again. I'm down on my knees here. No really. Okay. I'm back off my knees. It was too difficult to type. Skipping Lady In Red has plainly set a bad precedent. It's made me weak and indolent. I need to stop skipping performances just because they are bad. Right, I'm going in. May God have mercy on my soul and all who sail on me.

I'm back. This is exactly as bad as you'd expect from a song which welds banal lyrics to the Eastenders theme. Anita Dobson has a rictus grin on her face and it's clear she's out of her comfort zone but the audience sway along contentedly. The footage is unsettling and cynical. Here's the BBC publicising a Top 10 song based on the theme for one of their most popular programmes, and sung by one of its lead actors. And yet the footage is also weirdly numbing and tranquillising. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the performance includes They Live style subliminal messages flashing on screen; OBEY, CONSUME, NO INDEPENDANT THOUGHT, MARRY AND REPRODUCE. 

Top 40 Charts: Let's talk about sex Simon Bates. He's looking particularly Alan Partridge tonight in a green and purple tie, and matching burgundy blazer which appears to have been thoughtlessly pulled on over a pair of blue jeans. It's hard to tell because the studio lighting makes it difficult to get a good look at his trousers.

Top 40 Breakers: [29] Doctor & The Medics, Burn; [28] Bruce Hornsby & The Range, The Way It Is; [27] Prince, Girls & Boys.

[17] Phil Fearon, I Can Prove It. Phil's song gets off to a bad start with his opening address, “hey sweet baby!” You don't know me. Phil.

Top 10 Charts

[1] Chris De Burgh: Lady In Red. I reserve the right to continue pretending this song doesn't exist. At the end an actual Lady, in Red wanders on stage and presents Chris with a bouquet of flowers. The audience cheer wildly. The double whammy of Anita Dobson and Chris De Burgh has driven them out of their minds.

One Saturday in August 1986 my family moved from Kent to Essex. Our new house had double-glazing and we spent a few jolly minutes opening and closing the windows and marvelling at how much they reduced the road noise (in those pre-internet days people were more easily impressed*). And then around 8pm a disco started in the pub across the road. I went to bed and the noise from the disco got louder and louder. Suddenly the fancy new double-glazing did nothing.

I have a horrible memory of lying in my bed trying to deal with the uncertainty of being a teenager in a new town, wanting desperately to go to sleep and instead being forced to listen to a selection of the wicked hits of 1986 being played at top volume. And then the last dance started. It was Lady In Red. The DJ cranked the volume to overdrive, for added romance obviously.

I can't begin to describe the emotional stew of being tired, homesick, and forced to listen to Lady In Red at a volume which if you were playing it yourself you would think was ear-damagingly loud. Perhaps I started crying at this vision of my life in a new town; constantly tired, constantly unhappy, and constantly forced to listen to a song which I hadn't much liked even before the events of this Saturday night. And that's why I hate Lady In Red. (John- I’ve always wondered what the actual lady in red thought of it and the portrait of her on the cover)

[22] Jaki Graham: Breaking Away. Gary Davies, him again, is host next week. What's going to be the background to the closing credits? Could this be the end of eight weeks of blurry close-ups of blue and purple scenery? There's a degree more excitement because we've already seen a close-up of a different piece of scenery used in the Quantel mixes; a very busy and colourful still. In fact we get another glimpse of this image as Vision Mixer Heather Gilder cuts between Simon Bates saying “goodbye” and the Jaki Graham video. Tension mounts. The closing credits arrive. Jaki Graham is shrunk into a small box with space for the credits underneath. Where's the background? It's just a blank black space. What happened? Did the Quantel box break at a key moment?

Actually, I think the explanation is more mundane. The video for Breaking Away is in faux widescreen, which was seen as giving videos a classier more cinematic look on 4:3 televisions. The faux widescreen effect has a blank black background, and I think someone made the editorial decision that it will just look weird to have part of the background obscured by fake widescreen black bars. So, no blue and purple scenery this week. Instead we get nothing.

Performance of the Week: It Bites, Calling All The Heroes.

*In 1980, we brought a front loading washing machine** and the entire family sat and watched the first load cycle through. That's how starved for entertainment we were.

**I have no idea how my mother washed clothes before 1980. Presumably she used to take them down to the creek and thrash them against rocks.