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26/05/2023

Top of the Pops 5 May 1988

 

Bruno Brookes: “Good evening. Hello. Welcome to Europe's number one TV pop show. This is Top of the Pops and here's Adrian John.”

Adrian John: “Thanks Bruno, yes. Here we are kicking off with Joyce Sims at number twenty four with Walk Away.” 

[24] JOYCE SIMS: walk away. Quién es Adrian John? He looks like someone doing a funny spoof of a Top of the Pops host. Could it be David Copperfield, promoting Coppers & Co? No. Adrian John is the Radio 1 DJ you got when the Roadshow visited Ellesmere Port. He's the host of The Early Show on Radio 1. It starts extremely early, 5.30am to be exact. Let's hope he's not sticking around after recording finishes or he'll have a rough start to the day tomorrow.

 



 

All those early starts haven't done much for his television profile. BBC Genome records; Top of the Pops 29/12/1983; two episodes of quiz Names and Games, “Presented by Lennie Bennett... Sixteen show-business stars compete in games to win money for their nominated charities. The winning team will receive the highly coveted Butlins Trophy.” 25/08/1986 with a repeat on 24/12/1986; and this episode of Top of the Pops* Adrian John is presumably chancing his arm at joining the Top of the Pops roster now that Paul Ciani is the new broom in town. Or maybe he just fancied getting out and seeing West London by daylight.

Speaking of Mr New Broom Ciani, it's clear he now regards Quantel effects as part of the normal presentation process, unlike Michael Hurll who kept them for cutting between songs and programme segments. Paul Ciani has been sneaking them in as part of the presentation of electronic and dance tracks but observe the way the screen splits into quarters that spin away as Joyce Sims sings. It adds visual punctuation to the beat of the song. Quantel effects during performances are here to stay.

[10] NEW ORDER: blue monday 1988. On video. The first single I brought. Unfortunately the second single I brought was The Twist, by The Fat Boys and Chubby Checker.

TOP 40 FROM 40 TO 31

[29] MAGNUM: start talking love. Or “Sweet Talking Love,” if you are Adrian John. For reasons which are never explored Bruno Brookes and Adrian John are wearing matching blazers. It makes the pair look perilously close to Smashie & Nicey, and does make me wonder if Harry Enfield was taking notes when he tuned in tonight.

TOP 40 BREAKERS: [no 17 HARRY ENFIELD loadsamoney]; [no 30 THE ADVENTURES broken land]; [no 22 NARADA divine emotions]; [no 18 PRINCE alphabet street].

TOP 40 FROM 30 TO 11



[26] THE CHRISTIANS: born again. I don't understand why the keyboard player feels the need to bend double over his keyboard each time he plays the riff. Is it not set high enough?

More Quantel is used to add visual interest during the lengthy introduction. The output from two separate cameras is shrunk into boxes which get gently spun around the screen. Has the Quantel box been upgraded? This is the kind of electronic trick which became standard but I don't recall seeing it before.

[25] PRIMITIVES: out of reach. The Primitives are tucked away on a stage which looks smaller than normal because of the the two two-by-two banks of monitors put in behind them.

TOP 10. Is that really a picture of New Order?



[1] S-EXPRESS: theme from s-express. Back in the studio for their third week at Number One.

New Quantel effect. The box has clearly been upgraded. Observe the way the picture does a loop-the-loop while leaving a sort of comet trail effect behind. This is a much better staged performance than last time, 21/04/1988, with less sweeping crane shots and more hand held camera work. Good to see Paul Ciani is taking my advice.

[15] STAR TURN ON 45 PINTS: pump up the bitter. Mike Read and Simon Mayo next week. Top of the Pops closes with the video for a northern working men's club themed spoof of Pump Up the Volume. It's exactly as bad as you'd expect from that description.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Primitives, Out of Reach.

 *BBC Genome also lists him as playing Sailor in episode 3 of The White Queen, 30/06/2013. I think that might be a different Adrian John.

 

 

 

1 comment:

  1. That photo of New Order in the chart rundown is of course several months out of date by this point in 1988 - it was taken for publicity of their previous single, 'Touched by the Hand of God'. They parodied glam metal bands in its promo video, which sadly didn't get any play on TOTP during late 1987, despite reaching #20 in the charts here:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9M_bqIB6EU
    Slight spoiler perhaps, but IIRC the photo is later replaced by an even less representative one of just the dog from the promo video for 'Blue Monday '88' (!).

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