Top of the Pops 19 January 1989

 

Words: Chris Arnsby. Bruno Brookes: “Thursday night. It's that time of the week again,and welcome to Europe's number one TV p”op show. This is Top of the Pops and we have six live acts on the show tonight.

Richard Skinner: “And don't forget we are live in stereo, on Radio 1 FM. Let's kick off with Roachford, this week's number eleven here's Cuddly Toy.”

 [11] ROACHFORD: cuddly toy. This episode (downloaded, as always from Al Capone's vault at https://mega.nz/folder/h0snQACa#uiNNqosfbdrfzODHsE1clw/folder/g8EVjYrY ) opens with a BBC VT Clock with an enigmatic additional message that reads: “STEREO 0 LEVEL PPM4 FIRST 2 MINS THEN -3”. How mysterious. What can it mean? It's obviously something to do with the sound levels but the first two minutes only takes the programme into the middle of Roachford's performance. Wikipedia tells me that PPM stands for Peak Performance Meter that “indicates the level of an audio signal.”

Six people are crammed in the crow's nest at the start of the show. Richard Skinner is third in the line with Bruno Brookes fourth. This means the pair are numerically centred but on screen Richard Skinner is less immediately obvious than the glamorous blonde standing to the left of Bruno Brookes. Which is an odd coincidence. This is Richard Skinner's last show as host.

Bruno Brookes doesn't want to run up and down the stairs to the crow's nest, so Richard Skinner has to dash down in order to pop up main stage left as Cuddly Toy comes to an end.

[7] ROY ORBISON: you got it. On video, nearly 90 seconds.

CHARTS FROM 40 TO 31. Richard Skinner has run back up the stairs to the crow's nest in order to help introduce the charts, but he's not allowed to take part in the countdown. Did I mention this is his last time hosting?

[22] ROBERT HOWARD & KYM MAZELLE: wait. Richard Skinner is knackered so Bruno Brookes has to risk the treacherous stairs.

Bruno Brookes stands by the left of main stage and behind him a group of stage hands can be seen carrying stuff onto the stage recently vacated by Roachford.

[10] MARC ALMOND FEATURING GENE PITNEY: something's gotten hold of my heart. The new captions cope very well with longer song titles, there's no need for tiny fonts any more.

Richard Skinner is back down on the studio floor because Paul Ciani wants to repeat a swish camera move he used in the 25 Years of Top of the Pops special, when Richard Skinner has finished the camera pans up and over his head to the main stage; where the stage hands have finished dragging all Roachford's kit off and replaced it with everything Marc Almond and Gene Pitney require. Behind Richard Skinner you can see the the Floor Manager's team manhandling audience members and herding them into position as Wait ends.

Rod Litherland, Lighting, makes the audience stand out by colouring them a lurid red. It looks great. He's also got a new toy, a row of motorised lights hung from the ceiling which arc backwards and forwards; as they move to point backwards they glow red and then when they move to point forwards they change colour to blue.

BREAKERS: Last week there were six Breakers. A ludicrous number. How many this week?

33 TEN CITY: that's the way love is

28 WILL DOWNING & MICA PARIS: where is the love

31 NEW MODEL ARMY: stupid question

29 BROTHER BEYOND: be my twin

30 NATALIE COLE: i love for your love

[4] MIKE & THE MECHANICS: the living years. On video. It gets 75 seconds of airtime. Bruno “Criswell” Brookes predicts the song will be a future Number One.

CHARTS FROM 30 TO 11. Once again, Richard Skinner is not allowed to contribute to the chart countdown. I'm sure it will all be made up for with the Top 10.

[21] HOLLY JOHNSON: love train. I'm probably the last person to discover that Holly Johnson's absence from the charts was down to an injunction against him by his record label which sited breach of contract. The two year court case was finally found in his favour when the judge ruled the original contracts were “an unreasonable restraint of trade.” The best thing about the case, it was called ZTT and Perfect Songs v Holly Johnson which sounds like the setup for a rap battle.

Enough time has passed that I'd forgotten that Holly Johnson is a charismatic front man. He makes an immediate impression dressed in green and making deliberately small hand gestures (wearing lime green gloves) which show up well on camera and work equally in wide shots and closeups.

[5] FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS: she drives me crazy. The pacing of this show is noticeably rushed. I appreciate the programme is trying to cram more and more music into a 30 minute slot but I think it needs to be dialled back at bit.

None of the studio performances have come to a natural conclusion. Roachford's band was still playing for a couple of seconds after the crowd started cheering. There's a very sneaky edit at the end of Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart, the end of song applause is deliberately shifted back a few seconds to make the performance seem less brutally edited. At the end of Love Train the camera wanders off like its got bored, it settles briefly on Bruno Brookes and then pans to the Fine Young Cannibals. By the end of She Drives Me Crazy the editor has run out of creative ways to shave precious seconds off the running time and so more crowd applause noise is plastered over a camera pull back and then there's a straight cut to Richard Skinner and Bruno Brookes in the crow's nest. Thanks for coming on Top of the Pops, the Fine Young Cannibals, you can find your own way out.

TOP 10: Bruno Brookes handles the Top 10. Richard Skinner decides not to come back.

[1] KYLIE MINOGUE & JASON DONOVAN: especially for you. A repeat of the 22/12/1988 performance. For the record, it's had about 70 seconds lopped off.

[17] ROB BASE & D.K. E-Z ROCK: get on the dance floor. Gary Davies and Anthea Turner next week.

 PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK: Holly Johnson, Love Train.