TOTP 25/8/77 (tx 27/9/12): your super soaraway show

So you've heard the news? A continuation onto 1978 confirmed by two well placed sources, documentary (gnnh) and all?

Yeah, another year of my having to bash this out every Thursday night. The precious days before death never pass by so quickly.

It's the 700th TOTP, not that anyone mentions it. Instead Noel begins by giggling at something unstated before Donna Summer's Down Deep Inside soundtracks, at a more leisurely pace than usual, the rundown. "What with all the rotten weather we're having at the moment we could do with a bit of Summer" Noel overreaches, while also somehow predicting the exact climate during which this show would be first repeated. He must be some sort of warlock.

The Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
Back in the opening slot for the third time, only this time with an actual hit to call their own. Barrie Masters' stage schtick we all know about by now, chest proudly flashed, eyes glaring through the lens, springing back and forth from and to the stage's edge. The band don't quite look as right, though, as amid the feather cuts and mirroring shades one of the guitarists is wearing bottle bottom glasses and bears a blank expression, giving him not the appearance of a rock'n'roll monster but a well-meaning pharmacist involved in a hilarious mix-up. Not that that's any bearing on Masters and his wrist sweatbands, coming right up to the camera at one stage like he's cajoling us personally in between the space commanding, which in a way he always was. It's later revealed the cameraman has taken up the front centre position, possibly to avoid a repeat of last week's Midge Girl fiasco, though force of show repetition means plenty of movement. Hang on, who's that on the other stage clearly visible in the background - well, it's a group of women in matching hot pants, given time and place there's a limited number of options here - with their backs to all the action?

Elvis Presley – Way Down
There's a lot of lighting around a Gill Rosie-free Legs & Co's little play area too, set up as a kind of lit catwalk with Toppotron™ repurposed at one end for stills shots and close-ups of bulbs. All they've been hiding is T-shirts with 'ELVIS' in sequins and, for some reason, chiffon chokers. The routine sees them take it in turns and in various permutations to variously bounce, shimmy and soft shoe shuffle down the runway - at one point Rosie Gill runs up to its edge looking for all the world like she's about to dive full-length off the end. The main query is how come the ultrabaritone "way on dowwwwn..." close to each chorus is marked by the troupe sticking their hands in the air. Optimism clearly abounds, though that'd be inherent in having an upbeat dance routine as a tribute to someone's recent death. Having watched three minutes of leggy kicking and scampering amid bright bulbs, which seems to end with all five turning to face Elvis' image and giving a Hitler salute, Noel's tone suggests we've actually just been watching a state funeral.

The Boomtown Rats – Lookin' After No. 1
The Rats' official site claims they were "the first new-wave band to be offered an appearance on Top Of The Pops", which must be news to, oh, loads. Ask Jensen. "There's a mystery badge sticker, well, there's badges..." Noel has two, but declines to say where these might have been cropping up. "Bit of social comment for you, listen to the lyrics" he advises, which may say a little too much about his psyche. There was a time when the other things people came to know the Rats experience for - Johnny Fingers' pyjamas, a manaical looking Pete Briquette smaller than the drum kit (or a huge riser) - were new. In half-done up tie, smartish leather jacket and manageable hair there's something a little too precise about Bob on this first exposure to the big time he will eventually claim as his own. Not that the catalogue rebel or Ayn Rand-rock angle seems to matter, as the reaction to this outbreak of energy and nerviness is massive, most of the audience actually bouncing just three months after the same behaviour to the Jam was getting solitary people glares as Geldof air guitars around his knees, does more exuding straight into a nearby camera (one we clearly nearly lose at one point so much does it wobble) and then completely disappears from the director's view for nearly a whole verse, which makes you wonder what he must have been doing. Rather suspiciously they all join in, even the man in the boater, with the pointing towards the stage/punching the air on the power chords of the chorus of a song most of them, were this a normal cross-section, can surely have never heard before. Still, as Bob drops to his knees at the climax its new broom aura is hard to deny. Noel looks vaguely displeased.

Deniece Williams – That’s What Friends Are For
In what can only be described as a tightly cut dress Deniece appears in the middle of a floral frame design and delivers some easy soul lovin', nowhere near as slow as you'd think.

Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In Its Spotlight)
"They've got that little bit extra style" Noel marvels as if they're a brand new group who need barely workable aphorisms of praise rather than a third appearance for this one song that's still only at 23. This sense of style apparently extends as far as Phil's massive shiner - could be makeup, but it seems unlikely - caught in harsh unforgiving extreme close-up for quite some time at the very outset as if someone really wanted it to be seen. Two open shirts, an actual sax player in a 'THIN LIZZY READING '77" T-shirt which I'd like to think was a specially commissioned one of a kind just to show off and, again, as responsive a crowd as you've ever seen on this rerun.

Space – Magic Fly
"It's fairly unusual for instrumentals to do so well" remarks Noel on a programme that has an instrumental still to come on a show, and about a chart, that's recently had The Crunch and The Shuffle on at the top end. Lots of people seem to recall this video of fractals and soundwaves on visors, heavy analogue keyboards played like keytars, gold girl dancer and some very brusque drumming, which both looks and sounds like the sort of thing ITV used to put on when programmes underran but, like so much else this week, as we go back to a shot of Noel from behind next to the video on Toppotron™ to some indifferent bopping, you can't help but feel here is the future in microcosm.

The Adverts – Gary Gilmore's Eyes
As in its own way is this, and this is by any yardstick A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock. This repeat has already quashed an urban legend, that the show couldn't find a picture of the Adverts when they charted so put in the rundown a shot of Australian cricket Gary Gilmour; now, they look like they're putting another to rest with a live in-studio vocal. Not a very well mixed live vocal, TV Smith nearly inaudible for the first two lines, but a live vocal nonetheless. Smith proves one doesn't have to approach the camera, or let go of the mike stand come to that, to resemble an epitome of seething frontman energy and barely harnessed anger while wearing a jacket absolutely festooned with badges and accessories. What looks like miles away from everyone else, early black nail varnish adopter Gaye Advert smoulders in a leather jacket looking, almost certainly deliberately, one middle button away from emulating Masters and Lynott's style tip. Howard Pickup, who gets far more screen time than her, has a badge on that is wider than the tie it's affixed to. Drummer Laurie Driver's T-shirt depicts either a sex doll or a shocked Frank Sidebottom. Even those who went nuts for the Boomtown Rats don't know what to make of this beyond some distracted minor bouncing.

Page Three – Hold On To Love
In case you thought the show's batting average was rather too high this week.. That'll be three actual Page Three girls, then, in skintight leopardskin bodysuits off one shoulder. Gaye Advert, would that you were here today. Now, for those of you thinking along Glamourpuss lines, don't be so hasty, as it's far more Surprise Sisters level. It's not that Rula Lenska-haired frontwoman Felicity Buirski can't sing per se - in fact she later became a singer-songwriter and has some sort of connection with Leonard Cohen - it's that, also singing live, her voice has something but it's unsuited to the style. And it's not that her colleagues can't si...oh. They can't really do their dance actions, such as they are, together either, the two at the back reaching for the sky just out of sync as Buirski does some sort of tiger clawing action, which I suppose is appropriate for the attire. Having been slow to the uptake for the last band there's definite mass boppage now, which presumably means they were either up for anything or stylistically unfussy. Noel looks confused. "Wash your brain out from all those naughty thoughts" he adds. DLT would never have said that.

The Floaters – Float On
No show without punch. Astrological pulling as seen last week follows. "I'm on BBC2 in a couple of minutes but don't tell anybody" Noel drops in - curiously, as part of a season of the best BBC programming since the Jubilee, BBC2 showed an eighty minute Swap Shop compilation at 7.40pm that evening, thus elevating a show less than a year old. Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene plays us out under a tracking studio shot not through the kaleidoscope prism this week but through some sort of reflective cone, as if they'd sawed the end off a trombone and used that in a special effect emergency.

TOTP 11/8/77 (tx 13/9/12): Rods have their own back

The recent connection troubles at this end meant we've missed the opportunity to mark a couple of recent TOTP-related deaths. Jerry Nelson, who died on 25th August aged 78, had worked as part of Jim Henson's company since 1965 and was best known as the voice of Count von Count (he also did Statler for a while and innumerable minor characters), but it's him voicing Robin on Halfway Down The Stairs, the tender AA Milne-penned song that never failed to send Noel into giggles.

More pertinently for Pops, we lost Louise Clarke a couple of weeks short of her 63rd birthday. She wasn't strictly a founder member of Pan's People, joining a year after they were initially set up and not appearing with them on TOTP until May 1968, a month after their debut, but she was there through their imperial phase, leaving after almost exactly six years, the famous Homely Girl routine her swansong, to get married and start a family. Here's a tribute to her work.

Meanwhile, many have noted the letter in this week's Radio Times in response to praise for this series/year that "it has no immediate plans to show the 1978 series, but is keeping that decision under review". The reading from our end: calm down. It doesn't say they're not going to, it says essentially they don't know. BBC4 won't have made any plans for next year (apart from a couple of already announced special seasons, but that's different) by the end of August when RT would have started being put to bed and they didn't announce or start working on '77 until some way into October.

Back to this week. (Well, the week we're up to in 1977, but you know what I mean) Kid's in charge and literally showing his true colours in a red and white lace-up top emblazoned with a maple leaf motif and, in case the subtlety was lost, 'CANADA' in big diagonal letters. We later see '74' is emblazoned on the maple leaf. No idea. The countdown is restored, as is only correct, to the top of the show, and Kid has a countdown of his own to add as Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner is the chart rundown music. Kid then does a voiceover link into the first song, ruining the ever fun element of surprise and anticipation. Or maybe not, in this case.

Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
"Unmistakeably Showaddywaddy" at that, though surely that doesn't take into account all the original rock and roll bands and all the songs they cover, this included. We do at least know the drill now, wherein Dave Bartram and his lush, tumbling, vitality-filled locks attempts to look appealing towards crowd and camera in turn, coupled with the odd bit of visual comedy double take. Very low forms of visual comedy, admittedly, when it constitutes looking quizzically at his open palm for the line "with your money we won't get far". This time the drapes seem to be colour coded by instrument, with the allotted backing singers in canary yellow meaning despite it being mostly hidden by Bartram's head we can kind of get the gist of their middle eight routine involving spinning, kicking and the ever present notion there's got to be more dignified ways to come across on television, as Bartram goes on to glad-hand the front row and plant a smacker on some girl's forehead. Meanwhile Buddy Gask does his single basso profundo vocal and wonders when that supposed joint lead singer role is going to come up again. To close everyone turns their back on the audience as a mystery invisible sax solos away.

Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Hard to describe the motion Kid makes into this, a kind of swung arm round towards camera into leg-aided air guitar power chord. Splendidly, with only two to choose from the intended opening close-up on the guitar strings chosen by the director is on the rhythm, which has two notes to play, rather than that playing the distinctive lead riff. A Chuck Berry cover, rock and roll business is conducted by a man who's really tried to look the part - receding pompadour, white shirt and leather trousers, one handed confident mike stance leading to full knee knocking once the mike is in his hand, looks, like Alvin Stardust, far too old for all this. As for his band the bassist is wearing the cap of a stereotypical camp biker - as he is in their countdown photo and was last time we checked in, maybe it was his "thing" - while I still can't work out whether both guitarists have moustaches or not. The audience are into it, at least one young couple jiving as much as what they understand jiving to look like. Even better, one long shot reveals two men in a committed full-on rendition of that shoulder-first routine usually carried out by men in distressed denim jackets at Status Quo gigs or on stage with Mud doing Tiger Feet. Not for the last time tonight, Kid appears alone in the distance, slapping the side of his thigh in time to the beat during the instrumental break. Kid promises more for "the rock fans" later.

Barry Biggs – Three Ring Circus
Repeat. The seated one rather than the ringmaster one, sadly.

The Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
Not a mistake, Eddie & The Hot Rods traded under this name for a little while, presumably to make people think they were a hot new young punk band. It seems to have worked on Kid, who goes falsetto by the end of declaiming the title having enthused "this has got to be one of the best rhythm and rock records this year". Rhythm And Rock, for those who don't recall, was the more ostensibly commercial parallel to A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock. Not that the band are hiding anything, Barrie Masters still restlessly stalking and covering every inch of the stage and gurning between occasionally mimed lines in white jeans and an open shirt, occasionally grabbing the above the crotch area of his huge belt. Of course there's a member, the bassist, in dark glasses. Less punk-like, he's also wearing a yellow and black striped headband.

Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
Well, this is quite rum. "The mood is mellow" maybe but not so literally, surely. For one thing, surely it's a late replacement given we've seen the video twice, but it's not clear what it might have replaced. Tavares' One Step Away seems most likely as it had been hovering around a central position before suddenly falling right out of the top 30, while Mink DeVille's Spanish Stroll had entered the top 50 the week before but hadn't quite yet made the rundown. Danny Williams' Dancin' Easy, surprisingly sticking at 32? The Ramones' Swallow My Pride, which entered at 36 the previous week but fell? We can but ponder and create unlikely mental images. Anyway, We're All Alone it is. The troupe, in non-fetching shades of electric blue/mauve and orange dresses with matching legwarmers, start lying on their backs and kind of stay there. Not just like that, obviously, even Flick would be called into question were it a tableau rather than routine no matter how clearly properly undanceable for slowness reasons the song is. No, from there is carved out a succession of seated positions, Oops Upside Your Head-recalling bends and lunges, rolls, crawls and just about every combination of arm and leg bending and swinging, closing with an extreme close-up on... well, I can rarely get them right when their faces are the right way up, but I think it's Gill... whoever, she's making something akin to devil eyes at us, perhaps hoping for something upbeat soon. It's more like a gymnastic floor exercise routine-cum-keep fit video on 2x fast forward and for all we know might have constituted an ongoing sit-down protest following Roadrunner's seated delivery. And not a cacti in sight either.

Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In It’s Spotlight)
"From some delightful Lizzies..." Eh? I double checked, he does say "Lizzies". As seems traditional with Lizzy - and that's what Kid calls them at the end so it's an official diminutive - it's a repeat, slow dancers and all. Perhaps inspired by the Rods, Kid calls them just "Lizzy".

Delegation – You've Been Doing Me Wrong
Delegation were soul's own Liverpool Express, clearly. In very Seventies ruffled white suits over paisley patterned shirts and huge bow ties and embarking on choreographed knee lifting, they can't quite disguise that they've just slowed You To Me Are Everything down a bit, or that the first verse is clearly supposed to be in three part harmony but the Willie Thorne one either has been written out of the part at late notice or can't be bothered to lift the mike to his mouth but is gamely miming along anyway. After that he's always just slightly out of the movement routine, glancing across more out of blind hope than checking, sometimes affecting a half turn to make it seem more noticeable. The main singer isn't well served by shooting from below either given it means we can see the gap in the front of his teeth all the clearer. When the camera pans back to Kid he's swaying gently sat in the lotus position grinning to himself, as if in the midst of a pleasant flashback.

Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
A few more seconds than last time of the live clip, I reckon. "Isn't that fabulous?" Kid says. Maybe if we saw more of it.

J.A.L.N. Band – I Got To Sing
"Back to the disco scene", apparently. Apart from the keyboard player in grey slacks hoping we won't notice because of his instrument, more white suits all round. Was there someone unscrupulous going round the dressing rooms? Plausible given the horn section, who so clearly aren't regular members of the band they should have had their own caption. If the singer gets any closer to the edge of the stage for the verses he'll be dragged in, and he can't say he wasn't warned. Maybe that's why he's not concentrating on his miming, missing half a line at one point. Or maybe he's just terrible at it, not clear in his own mind whether vocals are lead or backing by the end. He's completely disrespecting the title of his own band's song in that.

Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Week four of four atop, and evidently not a moment too soon for the show. Obviously we don't know what they did in week three, but given week two involved slides and seated lunges you'd have put good money on a kaleidoscopic image of a potter's wheel or similar by now. Instead once Kid has symbolically clutched at his heart it's the escape hatch once more, but with a twist - Donna's passport photos on Toppotron™ once more, awkward dancing in semi-darkness again, but in the distance five sixths of Legs & Co swish their long dresses about in strict formation - shimmy, dip left shoulder, shimmy shoulders, dip right shoulder. In other words, a standing version of the routine they developed from within RoadRunner, and just as then most people aren't paying the blindest bit of attention. Five, though? Sue's the odd one out as she faces off and shimmies on a raised corner of the set with... Floyd! The man for all emergencies. Sue's still wearing her outfit from earlier, from which we must assume her colleagues are too, and we now see a bit of netting on the front, which we see the rest moving around a bit during the chorus. The little details lost on the big stages. To fully cap this mise-en-scene of disco shaking, visible in his colours right in front of the Legs & Co quorum is Kid. He's dancing. Or so the intention seems anyway, his style developing over time from some awkward rhythmic (but not rockist) finger clicking to full-on shifting from side to side in an approximation of getting down with the groove, apparently not only completely unaware and out of time with what's immediately behind him but with everyone else too. We're allowed just the 1:50 this week before Kid, still shifting in one spot with a little arm movement too, delivers the coup de grace before resuming with even more gusto as the song continues to play us out: "from me, Kid Jensen, it's goodbye and good love!" Yep, the full version. It's been a while.

By the time Pops returned the following week, there'd been a death in the family.

TOTP 21/4/77 (tx 3/5/12): just because a record has a groove don't make it in the groove

A side note to begin: there's no Pops next week - don't know if The Sky At Night is moving any time soon but this month's is a special to mark 55 years on the air so give them some leeway for now - but as part of their 1970s series BBC2 is getting in on the act by showing this one at 10pm on the 12th May. Surely there's better choices? And not just for Gary Glitter's presence, much as that'll get the duty log going.

And then, on the 17th... two TOTPs in one night! Christ alive, I'm already dreading how I'm going to work out that week. 7.30 and 8.30, since you ask, with the long promised Tales From Television Centre documentary at 9 and a 1974 Blue Peter featuring a tour of the same building at 8, and the unedited Pops will be shown back to back from 11.20.

Back to forty minute originals this week, so let's try a new way of doing things - if possible (as, for example, not this week) I'll have the Thursday evening recap up later the same night, then some time on Friday the songs edited out will be included.

Oh, Tony Blackburn. With your Lego man hair and your cream polo neck and your lack of jokes now Diddy's off the roster.

Eddie & The Hot Rods – I Might Be Lying
PUNK! Well, no it isn't, it's not even as punk-like as their previous appearance with Get Out Of Denver, it's just not-as-good-as-Dr Feelgood-style pumped up rhythm and blues pub rock. Barrie Masters is certainly aware of what's going on with his stance and microphone attack mode, forward and back across the stage with an artfully bare chest and with the camera following his every step eagerly from almost underneath, but somehow it's not quite right. Maybe it's because it always looks like he's about to break out into a great big smirk. Both guitarists and the becapped bassist are in shades, one of the former pulling plenty of rock action moves unbecoming to his Graham Parker-in-leather-jacket appearance. Not for the last time tonight the audience couldn't be less interested. Three girls right by the front of the stage are watching the overhead monitor. Another is not only looking away from it but also chewing gum nonchalantly. Put some ripped leathers on her and she'd make the lead in a bad comedy sketch about punk, I suppose.

O.C. Smith – Together
"This used to be one of my records of the week". Oh, Tony, everything's your record of the week. He even mentions it again afterwards, he's so proud of its status. It's a long way from the Soul Train clip of two weeks ago to Elstree, but in his neat all-blue ensemble incorporating waistcoat Smith still exudes a kind of glazed sophistication against the very vague efforts of the orchestra, showmanship limited to some finger clicking. In the background various Hot Rods briefly appear to tidy up after themselves.

Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
Cameraman and director in perfect misdirection harmony.



Pauline and the others (bar Patti - well, she needed time off after what Floyd put her through last week) are in very shiny and reflective silver dresses with something similar on top of their heads and they're going right through their training, bits of celebrated dance styles mixed in with the usual exertions somehow to balance with Stevie's appreciation shout-outs. Plus, for that extra ingredient, audible handclaps. As long as they weren't dubbed on in post-production, that's all that matters. And the audience respond in kind with... well, no, they don't respond in the slightest. Hardly a twitch, even though Pops seems to have built them three ringside grandstands to sit in and still have to have some standing around at the sides. Never a good idea, putting the audience in the background, you can then see how easily distracted they get. In one close-up only Tony, absent mindedly tapping the mike against his other wrist, is showing any sign of life.

Berni Flint – I Don't Want To Put A Hold On You (edited from 7.30)
Can't work out if this is a repeat or not. There are after all a limited number of things a director can do with one seated man and his acoustic guitar picking.

Tavares – Whodunnit
"I hate to brag but this was another of my records of the week". How many does he get a week? It's a clip from Holland's Top Pop, possibly chosen for the name alone, and a show that clearly holds no truck with the art of miming as only the lead singer is given a microphone even though backing vocals and harmonies are scattered throughout. Their matching crimson outfits with elaborate collars are quite the thing, along with the standard issue soul wing shirt collars. The shirts are pink. Pink!

Lynsey De Paul & Mike Moran – Rock Bottom
Lynsey's special 'ROCK BOTTOM' paper didn't arrive that morning, nothing amuses her and this time nobody can be bothered with flags (or reactions) around them, but otherwise it's pretty much the same facing pianos arrangement as last time. They didn't even play it like that on the night, which was still more than two weeks away at this time due to strike-related postponement. The early version features a tremendously clumsy mid-song edit.

Leo Sayer – How Much Love
Well, this is decidedly odd. A video (here it is) directed by the man behind the Bohemian Rhapsody video (and has directed every live American Idol), it's essentially built around up to four Leos dancing and essentially messing about while singing, filmed individually and often in silhouette, looking like a cross between Once In A Lifetime and the credits sequence of Bottom.

Delegation – Where Is The Love (We Used To Know)
With Tony keen to state they're from Birmingham, so we run into 1977's Sheer Elegance, only with toned down wardrobes, if that's how you'd describe all-in-ones with zips right up the front in Wolverhampton Wanderers colours. All things are relative, after all, and you definitely wouldn't run them over. As far as the song goes it's pretty much the same as every other male vocal harmony soul outfit, their USPs seemingly being a) the Charlie Williams-a-gram lead singer pitching the mike at an angle where he constantly has to tilt his head upwards, and b) the chain of male pattern baldness from left to right - curly perm, shaved short, actually receded to the sides. "They now go back to Germany" Tony enthuses.

Elkie Brooks – Pearl's A Singer
Repeat from her second appearance. The pianist is quite Lennonish, isn't he?

David Dundas – Another Funny Honeymoon (edited from 7.30)
"At last David Dundas has given us another hit single!" I can't imagine that was an oft heard exultation at the time. Better arrangement - no chicken guitar, less In The Summertime stealing - and an unobtrusive white suit but ultimately a lack of charisma does for him no matter how much he tries to make unbecoming doe eyes at the camera. Someone right near the front in a huge floppy hat nods along while looking away from the stage. He's not that bad. "A nice happy-go-lucky one for the summer, I'd have said" is Tony's only half listening interpretation.

Dead End Kids – Have I The Right (edited from 7.30)
The multi-stage production from last time around.

Deniece Williams – Free
As with OC Smith she was performing this on clips imported from Soul Train two shows ago. Impractical as it sounds, it'd be nice to think there was some exchange program going on and that same week Showaddywaddy and Dead End Kids were confusing the cool kids of LA. What is definite is even for the time those are the greatest width of bell bottom we've seen, and in another all-in-one to boot. Turquoise, too. Great live vocal, hamfisted interpretation, and only what looks like a portable set of steps for her to sing on, Delegation obviously far more important to properly locate than an American boasting the country's number four single. The camera crane ends up behind her so we can see the orchestra in the middle distance and in between a sea of blank faces. Johnny Pearson, it transpires, is miles away, behind part of the camera run. Maybe that was the problem.

ABBA – Knowing Me Knowing You
With the minimum of fuss it's a third week atop for that video, then someone behind Tony adds their own "bye!" just after he says it, then Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill and we're out.

TOTP 9/9/76 (tx 22/9/11): the great pub rock revival

Something of a sea change for the rest of the 1976 run as all the remaining shows are half an hour long in their original form, so no excuse for editing from here on it (except possibly the show before Christmas which might run slightly long, and of course we don't yet know what slots the Christmas shows themselves get) The repeats are still on, though.

As a further aside, I liked this blog post about TOTP.

Jimmy Savile in charge, and as offputting as his bright orange tracksuit top with plunging neckline is as a hors d'oeuvre we only get a top half shot for now, which is a blessed relief for three or four minutes.

Eddie & The Hotrods – Get Out Of Denver
Punk! Well, it's not, it's rough-house pub rock by way of rockabilly as punk doesn't arrive in single form until late October and not on TOTP until May 1977, but in comparison insomuch as by this point they'd had a residency at the Nashville Rooms with Strummer's The 101ers and in February had booked the Sex Pistols as tour support only to drop them when at a preliminary gig at the Marquee Lydon smashed up their gear (getting the Pistols their first ever music press coverage, for what it's worth) This was from a live EP and sounds it too, the energy and enthusiasm somewhat stymied by the start of the performance being overlaid with a set design that says less rock'n'roll attitude and more One World Roots Festival 1998 logo and by an audience that don't yet know how to approach this music. Several people attempt some sort of solo jive. Two people with 'RODS' on the back of their jackets, having heard this all before, point at a monitor instead. Barrie Masters, with his migraine-inducing green squiggly jacket over bare chest, has been separated from the rest of his band by a pit full of youths. That band includes a bassist with the logo of the US fanzine Punk on his T-shirt and a drummer pointlessly in just his pants and very long stripy socks. It's not like he'd been sweating the whole night through to that point. Maybe it was his thing. Or he was on a bet. Towards the end the camera definitely, finally runs someone over as it closes in on Masters, swingingly briefly but wildly to the left before crash-zooming in on target. Jimmy then wanders on set, in front of that seperately projected backdrop, a bar too early with the visual effect still on so only his outline can be seen at first, and it's not a pretty outline. "Gonna go to number one, that, as it happens" he confidently predicts. It got to number 43, as it happened.

Twiggy – Here I Go Again
Someone's definitely got into the habit of not cutting Jimmy off when he starts rambling at the end of sentences, just letting him wind down like a Duracell bunny. "And how are all you ladies and gentlemen at home? Very well, we hope. Have a nice time. See you soon. Here's Twig." See you soon? Maybe he anticipated everyone drifting off during this, especially as it's the video with less of a budget than Pops had managed.

The Wurzels – I Am A Cider Drinker
Jimmy Saville surrounded by seamen. Don't. Three of the crew of HMS Daedelus "from the boiling high seas", as he puts it, which suggests he doesn't know that much about the properties of large expanses of water, or for that matter sense as he then calls them "the BBC seas". They don't manage everything, Jimmy. Wonder if the show was recommended by those bored pisstaking sailors in the crowd the other week, and if so what must these three men of the tides have made of the circumstances of the moment at which they had their television break. No sousaphones made their way through this week, so it's rags on sticks all round and collective knee bending. Bizarre as this possibility seems, I wonder if this is an orchestra job - they're definitely re-recorded vocals and the rhythm seems a little flat-footed. We do get the extra bits performed live, though. No samples here.

Lou Rawls – You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine
Haven't mentioned Jimmy's bottom half yet, and for a good reason - it's the smallest pair of red athletic shorts you'll see. You really do fear for shots from anywhere below. Surrounded by people in homemade T-shirts the slogans on which aren't entirely readable - 'MIKE AND MARTYN' something say two - Jimmy has help introducing a real hodge-podge, like Flick had three ideas and just couldn't decide, except that this week it really wouldn't be driven by the lyrics. Stage right, Floyd in a silver reflective suit and matching top hat waves a cane around, another of those short straw efforts he seems to keep being assigned (oh, just you wait for next week). Stage left, three of the girls do the time immemorial ostrich feather routine. Middle front, Cherry and Philip play out a modern morality dance part-trad part-mating ritual, Philip in an entirely car spray silver outfit with cape and hat attached to the top of said cape, Cherry with a toga/throw rug and a huge blue flower in her hair. Although everyone clearly goes through their own fulsome routines throughout it is this pairing that get the bulk of screen time and as you'd expect from that pairing there's an overflow of nods to camera - over the shoulder, little glance, the lot - though at least Philip isn't miming along this week. Jimmy, arm on a girl's shoulder, says "yes indeedy" four times in a row.

Cliff Richard – I Can't Ask For Anything More Than You
An advance in the director's art as we get the first few seconds actually off a studio monitor, later overlays giving the impression of infinite Cliffs. Well, it fills the big black space. It's another staging of the same falsetto-friendly arrangement, Cliff back in his too tight jeans as well as a small medallion. You wouldn't think he'd be the type.

Bay City Rollers – I Only Wanna Be With You
Now Jimmy's sitting down, giving those unsettingly thin pins a full airing. We're pretty much towards the end of Rollermania, with a new bassist sporting huge flares and barrelling through a cover without much due care and attention. Only Les even has tartan on, and that's on his shirt. There's a weird bit where a triangle appears at the top of a long shot of the stage with close-ups of the band members' heads as they work through the break. The orchestra adds an unwarranted triumphalist tone.

Kiki Dee – Loving And Free
How come Jimmy always gets the nurses on? It's established he does a lot of charity work, but that's no excuse to keep dragging on, as here, five ladies from Stoke Mandeville. If ever there was a time we needed orange overalls and awkward dancing it's now as Kiki and her fringe sits on a high stool and sings a light acoustic ballad that reeks of Two Ronnies middle bit.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band – Blinded By The Light
Same as last week. You'd better get used to this song. Oh yeah, IT'S NOT DOUCHE.

ABBA – Dancing Queen
Now Jimmy's surrounded by every female in the audience, some of whom are even listening. Presumably they still hadn't found a full broadcastable version of the video as this is a performance from something called ABBA In Australia (the whole thing is on YouTube). In a triumph of 1976 editing Jimmy is intercut to say goodbye before the end of the first verse and over the start of the chorus rather than a sensible point, given the whole clip goes on to be shown. It's not like people really knew it then as well as we know it now, after all. Costume is credited to 'Nicholas Rocker', who is a man that exists and has a costuming iMDB credit, but it seems presumptious to call that a costume, more something nicked from an athletics store cupboard.