Top of the Pops 2 February 1990

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

Bruno Brookes: “Looking forward to the weekend. Good evening. Welcome to another spondicious Top of the Pops. All your favourite artists from the hit parade. And what a way to start. This is the highest climber up twenty three places, Lonnie Gordon makes a debut with this song. Happening All Over Again.

[9] LONNIE GORDON: HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN. New set. The Unfinished Stage has been pensioned off. It was first used just before Christmas, 21/12/1989, and the last appearance was technically last week but in an already partially disassembled state. If you want to be scrupulously accurate (I do, I do) then the Unfinished Stage was last properly used on the 11/01/1990 show (Fish, Big Wedge). That's barely four weeks of use. Paul Ciani must have hated it.

This new stage looks better. A square frame at the front and triangle elements that radiate out from the back; a bit of false perspective provides an illusion of more depth than there really is. There are all sorts of nobbly bits and gaps to allow for the lights to shine through and make for exciting camera angles. Plus, the stage has been coated in a reflective material which picks up the colours of the lighting; in this case Chris Kempton is using his preferred blue and purple with orange highlights and where the orange shines on the set it gives it a bronze effect.

The Commonwealth Games are in their second week and once again Top of the Pops gets a 35 minute Friday slot, followed by a 25 minute repeat of 'Allo 'Allo. Over on BBC2 at 9pm you can see (“another bite of” ©Every Continuity Announcer Ever) Colin's Sandwich.

[29] WRECKS-N-EFFECT: JUICY. Paul Ciani oversees a very swish move from the camera crane. As Lonnie Gordon finishes, the camera pans back from the New Stage (I need to find a better name) and up to find Bruno Brookes on one of the studio bridges; “we're on the bridge, we're on the bridge” he says urgently, if unnecessarily.

While Bruno Brookes clunks through his link and describes Wrecks-n-Effect as “dance music” (is that right?) the camera gently pans left so that when it ducks back down the frame of view has shifted and we can now see Wrecks-n-Effect on the Record Needle Stage. It's a really clever way to keep the show moving.

CHARTS: 40 to 31

[20] AND WHY NOT?: THE FACE.  At one point, there's an overhead view of the drummer which appears to come from a point of view high up in the neon scenery. I spent the rest of the performance trying to work out if a camera trap had been fitted into the scenery and, if it had, could I spot it? I couldnt' spot nuffink.

A rewatch revealed that the camera POV was achieved by considerably less high-tech means. They made the camera operator stand on his tiptoes and hold the camera above his head. The operator is almost invisible against the bright background.

[19] SYBIL: WALK ON BY. Back to the new stage, which I have decided to call the Triangle Stage because calling it the Sunrise Stage would involve explaining how the radiating triangle shapes look to me a bit like stylised rays of light.

The orange lights have been turned off, and the shades of dark blue and purple lighting has been brightened to mauve and cyan. It's astonishing how different the stage looks.

BREAKERS

[32] BIRDLAND: SLEEP WITH ME

[36] BELOVED: HELLO

[34] EURYTHMICS: THE KING AND QUEEN OF AMERICA

[22] HOUSE OF LOVE: SHINE ON. Playing live in Egham, tonight*

*Tonight being 35 years ago when Bruno Brookes was talking. Obviously.

[4] MANTRONIX featuring WONDRESS: GOT TO HAVE YOUR LOVE: Promo VT.

CHARTS: 40 to 31

[25] CHER: JUST LIKE JESSE JAMES. Promo VT. Bruno Brookes tells us that Jesse James is “one of my heroes”. I guess he didn't see the episode of The Brady Bunch where Bobby becomes obsessed with Jesse James, until he has a dream in which Jesse kills off the rest of the Brady family.

[3] TECHNOTRONIC featuring YA KID K: GET UP (BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OVER). It's a great song and a good performance with lots of Quantel transitions and dynamic camerawork but, alas, I have nothing meaningful to say. Sorry.

TOP 10

[1] SINEAD O'CONNOR: NOTHING COMPARES 2 U. BBC VT. A repeat from 26/01/1990. On last week's write up I speculated this might be a pre-recorded performance but as mumu03 pointed out in the comments this must have been recorded that week. As the camera pans in at the start, you can just see the big ceiling mounted colour projection screen at the left of the picture showing the new Cyper captions.

Also, for anyone else tracking these things, this was the last outing for the Unfinished Stage in it's partially disassembled state.

[23] SKID ROW: 18 AND LIFE. Next week, Top of the Pops is back to Thursday, and 30 minutes, with Gary Davies.

The Cyper Graphic credits report the year as © BBC 1990. No more square Roman numerals for this TV series, daddy-o.

 Performance of the week: Technotronic featuring Ya Kid K, Get Up (Before The Night Is Over).