Ex-Southern Television production legend Mike Mansfield was brought in by London
Weekend to help flesh out Saturday Scene with some much needed live musical appearances.
A one-off pilot was shown in March 1975 and was considered successful enough to commission
for a whole series, starting September 1975. Although it was intended as a weekend
show, the show debuted on Anglia and other ITV channels the Wednesday before, so
seeing the London Weekend logo on a Wednesday must have been odd. Talking about the
pilot show to TV Times Mike Mansfield claimed "There's a prejudice against pop .
. . whenever they put pop on TV they do it on a shoestring."
Supersonic appeared at an odd-time for British pop, bridging the tail-end of the
more poppy faction of Glam and Glitter and the early punk and disco era. The show
featured the first flops from the likes of Roy Wood, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Alvin Stardust,
Slade etc. Speaking to TV Times late 1976 Mansfield claimed boredom was his motivation
for the show. "I was sick of watching groups who seemed to be rooted in concrete.
Any director could shoot that standing on their eyelashes. I wanted to contribute
something visually. I was sure the audience was tired of staring at guitars too,
they wanted to see people. But of course they have to be the right people." The Daily
Mirror enthused about the first show, "Fireworks flash balloons burst, confetti falls
and special prisms and lenses provide thrilling optical effects. Nothing like this
has been seen before on TV. Today's opener uses 600 different camera shots in thirty
minutes. It all makes "Top of the Pops" look like a Prom."
Former member of The Herd Andy Bown was brought in to record the theme, which was
also released as a single and he was invited to make a couple of appearances on the
show to promote it, while veteran Harry Rabinowitz gets the credit "Music Man", presumably
meaning orchestral arrangements where needed.
The visual style was similar to the Granada produced tea-time weekday pop shows with
screaming girls kept at a safe distance from the stars, but what made the show different
were the visual effects. Top of the Pops could only offer dry ice and only on special
occasions, but Supersonic gave us a blizzard of confetti, glitter and feathers which
would get stuck in the throats of singers, massive fans blowing G forces sideways
across the stage and very tall podiums and pedestals where the singer dare not move
for fear of falling. On one occasion Gary Glitter was put into a harness and flown
over screaming fans for which he was insured for a million pounds. To add to the
sense of hysteria Mansfield left a microphone open for the fans to scream and shout
their love for whoever was on, particularly notable for David Essex when he appeared
in late 1975. The technical effects meant that sometimes members of the crew would
quite often be in shot. The foam machine was probably the one used on The Rolling
Stones' It's Only Rock N Roll promo clip in 1974 which was also shot at London Weekend.
Each act was introduced from the control room by producer and director Mansfield
himself, quite often quipping "take 1" or in the case of a Glitter Band clip "take
4" (the take numbers were probably all made up), while any passing celebrity walking
through the London Weekend corridors would be roped in to help introduce an act.
Mansfield created his own catch phrase as every time an act was about to perform
he would demand his assistant "cue Alex Harvey", "cue Roy Wood", etc. This would
lead to a 1980s ITV series for Mansfield, Cue The Music, while a silhouette of him
at the control desk cueing in an act became his end credits trade mark, a bit like
Johnny Stewart's jacket slung over the shoulder at the end of Top Of The Pops. Mansfield
chose all the artists who appeared and gave them free reign to do something more
experimental, for example allowing David Essex to perform the seven minute title
song to his album All The Fun Of The Fair, instead of just plugging the new single.
All the acts either performed live, or had re-recorded the track especially for the
show and chose their own songs.
The shows seemed to have been recorded in LWT's Kent House studios on London's South
Bank the previous Tuesday or Wednesday evening to allow school-age kids to attend.
And quite what they made of the show's occasional Whistle Test aspirations is anyone's
guess. Snafu, Kevin Ayres, Stapps, Ozo (Ozo?), Ronnie Lane, Ace, Melanie and others
would never generate the same kind of hysteria that David Essex of the Rollers would,
but it's to the producer's credit that they gave time to those acts, even if it did
mean playing canned applause at the end of their songs, in fact, there was a 'sound
man' adjacent to the control room playing in differing audience reaction tracks between
the songs.
In a November 1975 article on ITV's pop music output Marc Bolan referred to Mansfield
as "a television version of Ken Russell." Mansfield himself declared "The show is
all about uniting the elements of television, the singers who create the song, the
cameramen and technicians who get it over on screen, and the audience, who reflect
the sheer enjoyment which is pop music. There is a serious, heavy side to pop, but
with Supersonic I'm dealing with fun. This always depends on the artist being good
enough to make the audience respond, and I won't have anybody on the show who has
a hit record but no act to offer and believe me there are plenty of people like that
around."
As with any success the cash-ins soon followed, with a tie-in magazine which, in
1975, gave away a flexi-disc of Mansfield chatting to the Bay City Rollers, while
the following year there was a K-Tel type compilation album from Stallion Records,
rather than go with the actual K-Tel or any of the companies that advertised albums
in TV commercials. The back cover announced "With his Supersonic album we aimed for
the perfect "line up" for a pop concert - on your own turntable!"
In 1976 a small corner of the studio was set aside to shoot a video for Elton John
and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking My Heart, also directed by Mansfield, while at Christmastime
1976 Supersonic moved onto the stage of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane for a live
charity show in the presence of Princess Margaret and hosted by Russell Harty and
Joanna Lumley.
The show must have somehow made its pop culture mark as Benny Hill added the show
to his roster of pop show spoofs along with Ready Steady Go, the Old Grey Whistle
Test and Top Of The Pops.
By late 1976 it was obvious that the game was up, with practically of the ITV channels
that took the show replacing it with cartoons and the like to counter BBC1's Swap
Shop and moving the show to Monday tea-time. London Weekend briefly moved the show
to Saturday tea-time it returned to Saturday mornings, but not before giving punk
its first TV exposure since the Sex Pistols' Bill Grundy outburst when the Damned
appeared in February 1977 performing Neat Neat Neat.
Despite Mansfield's Busby Berkeley aspirations there was a perception that the kind
of pop music that the show presented was on its way out, particularly with the advent
of disco which really wasn't represented on the show, other than disco-flavoured
pop. The show was cancelled in Spring 1977, with this from the TV Times "What a way
to go! The last in the present series of Supersonic brings together a host of well
known acts to finish in style. And they all combine to turn this show into one to
remember." Later, Mike Mansfield would claim that the fire officers from LWT made
too many objections about the stage set up.
The show would now go abroad, clips would be sold for US syndication in the show
Twiggy's Jukebox in 1978, while the show itself returned for a one-off Christmas
special on Channel 4 1983.
In early 1978 Mansfield began work producing the UK version of controversial American
"talent" show The Gong Show. Talking to the Daily Mirror Mansfield claimed "The show
mustn't be taken seriously, it's a fun show. It doesn't matter who wins. We're not
out to find stars." Frankie Howerd was the host of the pilot edition with Diana Dors,
Madeline Smith and Russell Harty as judges.
Supersonic was a truly fascinating look at British pop at one of its occasional turning
points. After disco and punk there would be no going back and for Mike Mansfield.
It seemed to be the end of his second golden era.
