Top of the Pops 18 June 1987

 

Words: Chris Arnsby. Right from the start, something's odd. The countdown clock (which I've just learned is more accurately referred to as a VT Clock) says:

TOP OF THE POPS
DAVID BOWIE
COMP TAPE

 David Bowie? Yes. It's true. The recording begins with a wide shot of the Top of the Pops main stage with Mr Bowie himself dressed in a shiny white suit standing stage left in front of the neon logo. There's about 30 seconds of awkward hanging around during which David Bowie amuses himself by strumming his guitar silently and doing a bit of light dancing. Floor Manager Ian McLean shouts, “right here we go,” and launches into a four second countdown, and then David Bowie performs Time Will Crawl. A performance never seen on air because the song peaked at [33] and then slipped out of the charts and was gone before the end of July. (John- It should have been Number One!) Best bit, David Bowie steps off the Top of the Pops stage and walks into the audience. I'm always a fan of this because I love that breaking of the space between the performer and the audience, I also love the idea that somewhere out there is a small group of people who can say “honestly, David Bowie was right next to me.” The audience look genuinely delighted but it gets even better when Bowie slides up to one person in the audience, puts his arm round her shoulders, and starts dancing with her. And she's got a story that ends, “no honestly. I danced with David Bowie.”

The rest of this review could just be screen grabs but I'll restrain myself to one from the end, where David Bowie stands surrounded by the audience grinning in a delighted but slightly shy, and simultaneously proud, way. I just wish I could make out what he shouts to the studio. I think it's, “we're good for another half-hour, by the way.”

You can watch this performance of Time Will Crawl on Youtube but you should really download the whole episode from https://mega.nz/folder/h0snQACa#uiNNqosfbdrfzODHsE1clw/folder/kpVhQAqJ because it's one to treasure.

 

The picture rolls, and there's a brief flash of Simon Mayo, looking nervous or bored, or boredly nervous, while Janice Long chats to David Bowies' dance partner. In the background the studio PA system plays So Cold The Night by The Communards. The picture cuts to another VT Clock and So Cold The Night continues. Then the music fades and someone (I think it's Simon Mayo, the scamp) squeaks “so cold the night!”

Simon Mayo: “Good evening. This is Top of the Pops. A half hour crammed full of Curiosity Killed The Cat, ABC, and the milk cream seller here Janice Long.”
Janice Long: “Thank you very much indeed. Over there, Samantha Fox, Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now.

[9] Samantha Fox: Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now. Not as entertaining as the video where Samantha Fox pretends to drive a plane, power boat, car, and horse. The highlight here is the visibly bored man leaning on a scenery triangle at stage right. He gives a jaded wave to the camera at the end of the performance.

For the first time (probably) Top of the Pops feels the chilly breath of competition. Over on ITV The Roxy has premiered*. Here's the line-up from the Tuesday 16^th edition; Living In A Box, Scales of Justice; Samantha Fox, Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now; Cliff Richard, My Pretty One; Chris Rea, Let's Dance; Echo & The Bunnymen, The Game.

[16] Whitesnake: Is This Love? On video.

[20] Tom Jones: It's Not Unusual. At the end of Whitesnake's dreary song the screen goes black and the audience applause fades away. Has my copy gone wrong? Suddenly, in audio only, Simon Mayo says, “just a little pause we have to do some video resetting upstairs,” the picture comes back on and he continues, “and we'll be on in just a few seconds time with... a very big punk.” Then the (pre-recorded) cheers and applause sound and Simon Mayo stops looking at the floor and shuffling from foot to foot, and pretends to introduce the next act. This is the studio recording rather than the final broadcast version, and it's a lovely glimpse behind the curtain.

Tom Jones is up next, recorded on 30/04.1987, previewed last week and finally seen here in all it's glory. It's a much better song than A Boy From Nowhere, in which Tom Jones feigns a baffling concern for Andalusian labour laws.

Top 40 Charts. Alexander O'Neil is going up, and not “down three,” as Simon Mayo boldly states.

[14] ABC: When Smokey Sings. Back for the first time since 1983. There only appear to be two of the original ABC left, Martin Fry and guitarist Mark White, so they've gone on a hiring spree with two backing singers and two saxophonists.

Because this is the master tape we get to see ABC shuffle off stage at the end of the performance. Janice Long bounds over and gives Martin Fry a couple of matey taps on the shoulder. Ian McLean wanders on for a (disappointingly inaudible) conversation with the hosts, and then Janice Long rehearses her link into the Breakers. “Let's have a look at some of the interesting movements in the lower regions, ” is her not-suitable-for-prime-time first attempt. Meanwhile Simon Mayo does a sound check, or he's practising counting up to two.
Janice is suffering in the studio heat. She fans herself and complains, “I'm all sweaty”. Ah, the glamour of television. “You'll cue me what?” she demands of someone off camera, then pulls a worried face and says “ooh” to some light studio laughter.
It takes two attempts to record the link into the Breakers. “You weren't clapping loud enough,” Simon Mayo tells the crowd, before speculating that the recording break was actually caused by Janice Long, “perspirating too loudly.”

Top 40 Breakers. [25] Chris Rea, Let's Dance. An appropriate choice for a studio session which also featured David Bowie. [24] Janet Jackson, The Pleasure Principle.

[21] Curiosity Killed The Cat: Misfit. “This is another slight pause.. these are all chopped out later,” says Simon Mayo attempting to explain the mechanics of TV recording to the studio audience. “So they just go off and have a cup of tea upstairs you see.”

Top 10. Another blank screen. These have been coming either side of pre-recorded sections, which suggests Curiosity Killed the Cat were in studio on another day. How many of pre-recorded performances were never used. Enough to make a new programme? Get on it BBC4.

Simon Mayo and Janice Long are standing in front of the colour screen to the stage right of the main stage. While they wait for the technical bods to do their thing the screen shows the Top 10 slide which wobbles alarmingly at one point.

Fair play to Simon Mayo for giving the full name for George Michael's naughty song at [3].

[1] The Firm: Star Trekkin'. On video -supposedly delivered to the BBC with only hours to spare after The Firm's Grahame Lister realised, “we were a bunch of balding thirty-something’s and we figured us doing Top Of The Pops would kill the whole fun element of the thing stone dead!”

[26] Broken English: Comin' On Strong. Peter Powell and Simon Bates next week. So soon?

Performance of the week: ABC, When Smokey Sings.

 *The Roxy actually started on Tuesday 09/06/1987, two days before last week's General Election episode but the news got lost while I was trying to work out where Peter Powell and Simon Bates were standing.