TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

A staple of BBC and ITV programming in the summer months of the fifties would be edited versions of the summer variety shows which would play in Blackpool, Skegness, Great Yarmouth and the other traditional British coastal playgrounds.

As TV and its audience became allegedly more sophisticated there would be reliance on TV studio bound shows offering pretty much the same acts. ABC's Blackpool Night Out / The Blackpool Show would run for two summers in the mid sixties and offered The Beatles playing live and Tony Hancock mistakenly trying his hand at becoming an all round entertainer.

After the 1968 ITV franchise round any thought of shows going to the seaside were ruled out as more high brow programming was expected. It was up to the BBC to offer a replacement but it would take until the mid 1970s. Possibly as a result of the success of It's A Knockout visiting seaside towns it was decided to get the bucket and spade and head for the beach one more time. BBC2 had offered us The Young Generation Big Top in 1973, which lasted one series, but it needed BBC1 to take it seriously.

The BBC charabanc parked up at the Blackpool and out fell Ken Dodd and his Diddymen, Dana, Wild Honey and dance troupe New Edition. For the series the producers used Gerry Cottle's circus tent. Hosted by Radio One's David Hamilton and produced by Michael Hurll the show's format couldn't be faulted. Comedy, variety acts from the circus and club land and the odd pop star, which by the mid seventies was very odd indeed. If proof were needed chief Womble Mike Batt provided the theme, Summertime City, which gave him a well deserved hit under his own name. Each week the show would visit a different seaside town and the show be hosted by a Radio One DJ.

For the 1977 season they introduced the Miss Seaside Special 1977 Natural Beauty Contest, while they also found themselves on the French coast thanks to a couple of co-productions with French TV. The show's passport also got stamped in Belgium a few times.

1978 sees them get their parkas out as they present Snowtime Special, a two-parter taped in Leysin in Switzerland, with proper international guests, Andy Williams, Boney M, Petula Clark, Manhattan Transfer and Charles Aznavour. The 1978 series proper bids a fond farewell to the Radio One DJs with Sacha Distel hosting most of the series, which mostly came from the same venue, The Hippodrome Big Top, Torbay in Devon.

The final series in 1979 called out for help from Radio One again as most of the the shows were hosted by Peter Powell, but by this time the show looked like any other light entertainment landfill site. The final show was an extended plug for Boney M, featuring the group performing six songs from their most recent LP. But there was still some fun to be had with Disco In The Snow, broadcast in April.

Among the musical guests over the years were The Three Degrees, Cilla Black, Abba, Dollar, The Dooleys, Ian Dury, Grace Jones, Dana Gillespie and many chart acts of the day.

Seaside Special was one of the last true variety shows. After the final Swiss show the tent was taken down, packed away and forgotten about. However, the BBC tried again in the early eighties with Summertime Special.

Dana is now appearing in 'Holiday Happiness' at the Southport Theatre, Southport.

SEASIDE SPECIAL

BBC1

5th July 1975 - 8th September 1979