Top of the Pops 14th & 21st February 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

 14/02/1991

 Gary Davies: “Hello. Very good evening to you. Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope you got loads of Valentine’s Cards. Welcome to Top of the Pops. We’re in Stereo on Radio 1FM and we have five acts in the studio tonight. Now with it being the most romantic night of the year it’s only right that we start off with a little bit of devotion, here’s Nomad. MC Mikee Freedom.”

 [3] NOMAD: (I WANNA GIVE YOU) DEVOTION. Gary Davies is on a stage festooned with heart balloons. Just for a moment it appears that Top of the Pops has gone all out on Valentine’s Day decorations. Right up to the point the camera pans away and it’s clear all they’ve done is put £20 (1991 value) worth of balloons around the Neon Tube stage and stood Gary Davies in the middle of them. Cheapskates.

"Wuthering Heights" review

 Those quotation marks, deliberately placed around the title on posters, tell you a lot about the latest big screen version of Emily Bronte’s classic. Their presence is both somewhat pretentious and also a suggestion that aficionados of the story may find this film not quite what they expected.  Not so much the Wuthering Heights as a Wuthering Heights. Even those of us who’ve never read the book are familiar with it’s beats and its mix of bleak landscape and unbridled passion that has inspired a number of versions, shameless copycats and even the famous pop song.

Small Prophets review

 

In his more recent work as both a writer and director Mackenzie Crook has drawn vivid portraits set within rural surroundings. His latest project relocates to the more urban locales of Manchester with equal success. The story may be surrounded by semi detached houses, alleyways and large shops but the focus of Crook’s lens and scripts remains intricate and hopeful. He combines the rich character work and easy conversation of Detectorists with the whimsical fantasy of Worzel Gummidge to create something both unique yet strangely familiar.

Top of the Pops 7 February 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

Bruno Brookes: “Good evening. Welcome to another fabbo Top of the Pops. The music brilliant as ever. We’ve got New Kids On The Block a little later, Gloria Estefan, The Simpsons, just to name a few. First of all we’re gonna start with a new entry at number twenty one, the song G.L.A.D. and the singer Kim Appleby. Yo!”

 [21] KIM APPLEBY: G.L.A.D. The BBC1 schedules have returned to normal and Top of the Pops is back to a running time of 30 minutes. However, this week there’s a greater reliance on music videos so it looks like this edition was planned with one eye on the assumption that it might need to be cut down to 25 minutes. The increased use of videos might reflect viewer demand but I suspect its because it’s simpler to snip out The Night Fever Megamix if the BBC goes War News Crazy again and tells the programme to lose five minutes.

Wonder Man review

 

The thing you can nearly always guarantee about Marvel tv shows is that each will have its own distinct flavour and style. In many ways these have been better than some of the films which haven’t always managed to match the individuality of the small screen series. Based on a comic character who first appeared in an Avengers story in 1964, Wonder Man is not, despite the name, simply a copy of Wonder Woman nor does it seem to have much in common with its protagonist’s print life at least not yet. Its almost a pre origin story.  While in the comics, he had the superhero costume for this series Simon Wiliams has been reinvented in a more down to earth scenario. The results though are considerably more interesting than if he simply was another bright costumed aeronaut.

Top of the Pops 24th and 31st January 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

24/01/1991

Simon Mayo: “Hello. Good evening. Here we go again. Another Top of the Pops. We’ve got a slightly shorter than normal programme tonight so we’ve got some... slightly shorter than normal pop stars. We’ve got Rick Astley, we’ve got The Simpsons on, Queen at the end of the programme, and Robert Palmer as well. We start at number twenty six with Tongue ‘N’ Cheek and Forget Me Nots.”

 [26] TONGUE ‘N’ CHEEK: FORGET ME NOTS. The BBC has gone all-in on coverage of the Gulf War. I’ve taken a quick look at the 24/01/1991 schedule printed in the Evening Standard and once Going for Gold finished at 2.25pm you could watch live coverage of the war all the way through to 5.05pm. The kids programmes were all booted on to BBC2, so two and a half hours of conflict were followed by the Thursday repeat of Film 91, which normally ran on BBC2. Film 91 neatly filled the gap until Neighbours. Then an extended Six O’Clock News ran until 6.45pm and was followed by a shortened local news programme. This had an awkward 20 minute running time that required Top of the Pops to begin at 7.05pm and end at 7.30pm for Eastenders.

Amadeus (1984)

 I’d never seen Amadeus despite its Oscar heavy reputation and wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s definitely not an accurate historical drama as a lot of the story is either heightened, changed or invented yet it is still an intriguing film. Director Milos Forman and scriptwriter Peter Shaffer, adapting his own acclaimed play present Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart not as some stuffy relic but as a pop star of his day complete with bad behaviour, bold dress sense and a refusal to conform. Yet he’s also brilliant, rustling up an opera in a few days and delivering a prodigious amount of music in a short time. 

The Wild Robot (2024)

 

Some films are so full of joy and whimsy that you can’t resist them, however much you realise you’re being led carefully through a story that touches on belonging, motherhood, friendship and standing together. Delightfully animated with just the right balance between digital sheen and more realistic tones delivered in kaleidoscopic colour at the speed of sound, The Wild Robot is such heartfelt fun.

 

Top of the Pops 19th January 1991

 

Words: Chris Arnsby

 Nicky Campbell: “Welcome to Top of the Pops” [pauses, does an exaggerated forward lean and looks over shoulder]. “You're in for a thirty minutes of untold aural and visual delights. And what a start. They come from Hackney in the east end, they've just taken America by storm with a top twenty hit, first appearance on Top of the Pops. Soho.”

 [26] SOHO: HIPPYCHICK. The VT countdown clock at the start of the master tape says this programme was scheduled for transmission on 17/01/1991 but the file supplied to me by Billy Smart is called 19 January 1991. Surely some mistake?

02/08/1990. Thursday. Iraq invades Kuwait.
20/11/1990. Tuesday. The United Nations Security Council sets 15/01/1991 as a deadline for Iraq to withdraw their forces.
15/01/1991. Tuesday. The deadline passes.
16/01/1991. Wednesday. Top of the Pops is recorded. Later, the multinational military coalition begin bombing Iraq.
17/01/1991. Thursday. The television schedules are ripped up to accommodate round the clock coverage of the war. The Six O'Clock News runs for an hour with the regional news bumped back to 7pm displacing Top of the Pops, which is moved to Saturday at 6.25pm. 

Z Nation Season Four (2017)

 Warren’s Dream

A two-year time jump and an apocalyptic vision open the fourth season in unexpected surroundings. Instead of the usual scrub and semi desert or empty warehouses and factories we’re in a sterilised, shiny environment amidst well-manicured lawns and impressive houses. This is ZONA and it seems that since the dramatic season three finale in which most of the cast appeared to have been killed Warren has been here in a coma. Director Abram Cox layers on the atmosphere as Roberta’s awakening from her slumber comes with strange visions of flesh melting rain, a black rainbow and long, long road. These keep flashing at us during crucial moments during this and most other episodes this season. Its definitely a change of tone for the series.

Top of the Pops 10 January 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

 Jakki Brambles: “Hello. Good evening. And welcome along to Top of the Pops. Allow me, first of all, to wish one and all a happy and healthy 1991. Got a good old show lined up for you tonight. We're starting off with a band celebrating a decade in the business of popular music. Please will you welcome, at twenty nine, Bananarama.”

[29] BANANARAMA: PREACHER MAN. The Main Stage is looking very purple tonight. Rod Litherland is on Lighting and he's seemingly hired every lilac light in London and set them off with a few blue highlights.

Top of the Pops 3 January 1991

 Words: Chris Arnsby

 Gary Davies: “Hello. Very good evening to you. Happy New Year from everybody here at Top of the Pops. We're coming to you live from Television Centre, we're also in stereo on Radio 1FM. Something for everybody on the show tonight. A lot of variety. We start off at twenty nine in the charts with Twenty Four Hours. Over there! Betty Boo!”

[29] BETTY BOO: 24 HOURS. Welcome to 1991. It's just like the end of 1990. Remember how I spent 600 words complaining the 20/12/1990 edition only had one studio performance? Well, that again but with the production team working twice as hard. Hope you like, Betty Boo and Seal. (Fortunately I do).

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

 

While this 1951 classic has a melodramatic title, poster and indeed opens in similar fashion it’s actually a thoughtful movie which, after the initial sequence of an alien spaceship landing in Washington, takes on more of the feel of a smaller film despite its large subject. Its biggest asset is in making the events however unusual almost documentary like at times as if this is something that could easily happen. For much of the time the film never steps over the top into melodrama, helped by a perfectly pitched performance by Michael Rennie and an aesthetic that still seems extremely cool seventy five years later.