TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

A spin-off series featuring the type of musical guests who would appear on the weekday arts/media series The Late Show. Five years after the demise of Whistle Test it was time to try again, but this time a new approach.

Hosted by Associate Producer Jools Holland the idea was to mix and match artists from various forms of rock, folk, soul, reggae and other popular music forms from around the world and get them to perform in the same studio (first at BBC’s White City compound, then at the Maidstone in Kent studios from 2013 onwards, until the show's move to Alexandra Palace).

After the opening credits, featuring Jools Holland arriving suitably late for the show, he would kick off by playing a piano riff which would then, encourage each act to join in turn, or as an ensemble.

The series soon attracted the calibre of artist coveted by the Q magazine buying public and seemed to co-inside with the return to live music rather than artificial synth/SAW pop.

Early shows seemed to be based around a genre, with one show mostly country music, one show mostly African acts, another contemporary gospel etc, but that would have to change at some point. Variety was brought in, but an audience wasn't. The initial series just had the studio staff and other acts applauding after each number.

Each series lasted no more than six to ten shows, but has proved to be the most successful British music TV series since Top Of The Pops. Featuring the world’s most bored looking audience it's hardly influential, becoming the Last Of The Summer Wine of pop telly.

Jools was never a host with a lot to say, he seemed constantly stumped, like a script had vanished in thin air, occasionally laughing or trying to be funny to fill a gap. It didn't work on The Tube and it didn't work here.

Virtually everyone of any worth, with the usual exception of Bob Dylan, has appeared on the show. Holland leads each show (and to be fair he's never missed one of them) with distinct authority like an orchestral conductor.

The annual Hootenanny show has become the one show that pubs up and down the country show every New Year's Eve, although this has since been challenged by BBC1’s concert from London’s Westminster Hall which is actually broadcast live and not recorded two weeks’ earlier like the Hootenanny.

The show celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in October 2017 with a special two-hour long special recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

A much needed refresh was announced in spring 2019. Jools would now have co-presenters. A book, commemorating the thirty years the show has been broadcast was published in 2023, written by Mark Cooper.

In autumn 2025 UK TV's U&Eden channel played all of the first two series, however many of the early shows were much longer than the original broadcasts.

LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND

BBC2

8th October 1992 - date