TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

One of the last great tea-time pop shows, recorded in Newcastle and networked across ITV from the beginning. Tyne Tees had already begun to make a significant name for itself in pop with local shows like The Geordie Scene, Check It Out and Alright Now, but the national network was the target for this outing.

The show was hosted by its editor and former journalist Alastair Pirrie (Ali) who had among his various female co-hosts over the years the then fourteen year old Lisa Stansfield. For the first two series his co-host was Lyn Spencer, who had previously worked on her own kids' show Lyn's Look In.

The show was ITV's response to Cheggars Plays Pop, with a combination of games and pop, including the Runaround-ish game Popscotch, while Pirrie had Tiswas plainly in his sights with custard pies and bad jokes. His hyperactive nervous laughter must have got on everyone's nerves, but that would eventually disappear. The audience, like Tiswas, was scattered around the set, not behind the camera like Crackerjack, but they didn't find it as funny.

Ahead of the show Tyne Tees' Malcolm Gerrie tried to explain to TV Times what the show was about "It is a sort of chaotic rock n roll party set in a pastoral Rupert The Beat type of environment."

Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne wrote the theme tune used for the first two series and appeared in the first series. Interviews and items on movies, musicals and dance were also regularly featured in the first series to break up the music and fill time. Also musicians like Ray Cooper, Rick Wakeman and Hank Marvin would come in and demonstrate instruments, while Kate Bush even came in with various props from her videos.

The third series sees the show move to Tuesdays and has new opening credits and a theme by Jerome-Whigfield, while game Popscotch is replaced with Chartbuster. Alastair Pirrie gave himself more to do between songs this time around, while production staff Malcolm Gerrie and Chris Cowie had moved over to Channel Four's The Tube, allowing veteran Royston Mayoh to become show producer/director. A tongue-twisting verbal challenge was introduced where kids and celebrities had to read a paragraph about pirate Peggy Babcock as quickly as possible. Non-music guests included Hughie Green, Bernie Winters, Duncan Norville.

The fourth series introduces a new co-host, Lisa Stansfield, while Pirrie is now sporting a beard. The content continues to baffle, not only hosting the bigger names like Spandau Ballet, Modern Romance, The Eurythmics, The Thompson Twins and Chris Rea, but also cult favourites like Freur, Nick Lowe and Peter Tosh. Quite what the kids made of it wasn't known.

Malcolm Gerrie returned as Executive Producer for the fifth series in 1983, while guest co-hosts were used for the sixth series in 1984.

The show had outdoor location numbers as well as indoor clips, either straight performance shots like Top Of The Pops, or little video-ettes with a few visual effects.

The show started off courting anyone who had a record to plug, many from the mid-seventies, but eventually it managed to persuade the likes of Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Kate Bush to either make an appearance, or at least make a contribution. It would also give valuable airtime to foreign acts who wouldn't get a chance on Top Of The Pops like The Motels, Phil Everly, Rick Springfield, Missing Persons, Inxs and Berlin. In 1983 they even gave space for the not very up and coming Seona Dancing, a late blooming New Romantic act featuring singer Ricky Gervais.

In 1985 Capital Radio disc jockey Dave (Kid) Jensen took over the host's job, however Alastair Pirrie remained show editor. The show format remained the same with guest celebrity hosts, an interview or two and three acts appearing live (although miming). As the show became more popular the location clips were dropped to make room for more live appearances. Local legends The Toy Dolls provided the new theme tune, while fashion expert Annabelle Giles was brought in to make all girls look like either Cyndi Lauper or The Bangles. Before the show was over and done it won an International Emmy for Best Daytime Children's Show.

The series was dropped by Tyne Tees so they could devote more time to developing a early evening pop show based on the ILR top forty. It would be remembered for taking more chances than most pop shows and was much respected and sadly, one of the last of its kind.

A great article written with the help of by insiders was published in Classic Pop magazine

RAZZMATAZZ

Tyne Tees

2nd June 1981 - 2nd January 1987