Top of the Pops 21 August 1986

Presented by Chris Arnsby. [25] Depeche Mode: A Question Of Time. Bruno Brookes. “Hello, good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops.” Gary Davies. “And here to start us off with a question of time it's Depeche Mode.” Lighting Director Derek Slee is conducting an experiment. How many spinning lights can he jam into a confined space before Brian Whitehouse tells him to stop being silly? Derek gets up to twelve; that's two globes hanging from the ceiling; four pairs of rotating lights at the front of the stage; and two spinning light poles at the back. Not counting, of course, the usual studio lights, and a myriad of flashing mini-strobes which have been packed into the scenery at the back. It's possible the scream from the studio audience is not excitement but an involuntary electrical spasm caused by induction from the massive electromagnetic field in the studio.

Last week Simon Bates forgot to mention Bruno Brookes would be hosting the show with Gary Davies. It's also been just over a month since Brookes and Bates dual hosted an edition packed with odd duelling banter about Brookes’ height. Does Simon Bates have a Bruno Brookes problem, or does Bruno Brookes have a Simon Bates problem? We'll have to wait until 1988 to find out because it's almost exactly two years before they share the screen again. Depeche Mode follow their song A Question Of Lust with A Question Of Time. I'm sure we are all eagerly awaiting the third song in this triptych.

[11] Prince: Girls & Boys. On video. Bruno Brookes, “here's the guy who's been setting Wembley alight.” It's a shame Prince couldn't make the 25 minute road trip to Television Centre; assuming Brookes is talking about Prince in concert rather than indulging in some ugly football hooliganism.

[23] Bruce Hornsby & The Range: The Way It Is. It's unusual to have two back-to-back performances on the main stage (the one with the colour screen to stage right and the Top of the Pops logo to the left). Bruce and his piano and his range are clearly pre-recorded, but earlier in the day or during the recording of another show? It's not possible to say. The lighting is more subtle than it was for Depeche Mode. The studio is darker, most of the lights are steady, and spotlights are used to highlight performers. It looks good and this, along with a couple of handheld cameras for close-ups of Bruce and his hands as he tinkles on the ivories, gives a more intimate feel to the performance. According to Bruno Bookes, Bruce Hornsby & The Range are now (ie, then*) “on tour with Huey Lewis and the News. Let's hope Bruce and Huey don't get their backing groups mixed up.

Top 40 Charts: The Quantel mix into the Charts has another new background. It's a close-up of blue cloth, for some reason.

Top 40 Breakers: Four breakers this week. [21] Janet Jackson, When I Think Of You; [19] The Human League, Human; [18] Peter Cetera, Glory Of Love; [15] Jermaine Stewart, We Don’t Have To…

[12] Modern Talking: Brother Louie. Modern Talking need to pick a fashion lane. The one dressed in lemon yellow, with the pointy hair, clearly thinks he's in Kajagoogoo. The other, long flowing blow-dried locks and black leather, thinks that Modern Talking is a smarter version of a hair metal group like Aerosmith. Whoever they are, they are no Falco. Post-Glasnost, Modern Talking were one of the first groups allowed to sell their records in the Soviet Union, which promptly collapsed. “That's a song you'll have heard in all the holiday discos,” says Gary Davies afterwards, unconsciously paraphrasing The Chicken Song. I can't work out how he could have made such a Freudian Slip, only one of these two wet gits has girly curly hair.

Top 10 Charts

[1] Boris Gardiner: I Want To Wake Up With You. On film. Lots of lovely footage of the Hammersmith and City line at Westbourne Park. Behind Boris an advert for Heathrow airport boasts, “now you can fly to Terminal 4.” Not from Westbourne Park you can't. You'll need to get the Circle Line to Hammersmith, walk across the road to the Piccadilly Line, and even then you'll have to get off at Hatton Cross and catch a bus. It's a lot of effort. No wonder the next shot shows Boris in a taxi.

[28] The Communards: Don't Leave Me This Way. The Communards don't have Boris Gardiners' money, they're on video. Next week is a live Top of the Pops “with John and Janice.”

The background to the closing titles is not the close-up of blue fabric seen repeatedly through the programme. Nor is it a return to the blurred close-up of blue and purple scenery. Instead it's a boring, electronically generated shade of blue which grades down from dark at the top of the screen to light at the bottom.

Performance of the Week: Bruce Hornsby & The Range, The Way It Is

*That's then now obviously. Then then would have been then rather than now as Bruno Brookes said. (John- Er…what?)