18/03/2024

Top of the Pops- 2nd & 9th March 1989

Words by Chris Arnsby.
02/03/1989

Gary Davies: “Hello. A very good evening to you. It's Thursday night, welcome to another Top of the Pops.
Anthea Turner: “And tonight in the studio we've got Sam Brown, Tyree, Texas, and Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine!”
Gary Davies: “But first we're going to blow the house down will you welcome Living In a Box.”
Anthea Turner: “Yeeeeess!”

 [17] LIVING IN A BOX: blow the house down. More thunderflashes. The BBC has invested in a new type which send up a shower of sparks and a less smoke than the old ones. The first round of sparks go up following the line “don't be afraid, let it show.” This is a bit of a shame because the next line is, “don't be afraid, just let it explode.”

Did someone hear “don't be afraid,” and press the button too early? This speculation is confirmed when the second time the “let it explode,” line is used a nice shower of sparks busts up behind the band. And the third time. At least whoever's finger was on the button got the timing right for the final round of explosions at the climax of the song. (John- If, as previously confirmed, they live in "a cardboard box" blowing said dwelling down would not be that difficult)




12/03/2024

Reviews - Damsel, The Sidemen Story

 

Damsel

The idea of a damsel in distress who rises to the occasion rather than waiting for a prince to rescue her is a fun idea that this film starring Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things leans into. In an unspecified time and place that borrows from English history and mythology, a struggling family offers their eldest daughter Elodie to the royal family to marry a prince which seems fairytale enough till we -and she – learn the terrible truth about what the marriage will mean. I should have said awful truth really because the central conceit of the film is so unintentionally silly which somewhat undermines the subsequently deadly serious proceedings resulting in an uneven if enjoyable enough result.

 


08/03/2024

Top of the Pops 16 & 23 February 1989

 

16/02/1989
More housekeeping: Top of the Pops cannot be stopped! (except by the BBC in 2005). Many thanks to Billy Smart and mumu03 who both stepped in and offered help to keep these write ups going. Billy Smart has kindly hooked me up with the relevant episodes and I understand from the Popscene forum (in other news, I've learned there's a Popscene forum) that efforts are being made to get the whole huge archive back online somewhere. Let's see what happens.

Mark Goodier: “Yo. Good evening and welcome to Europe's number one pop show.”
Andy Crane: “It's two days after Valentine's Day but we're still feeling romantic, we're still feeling mushy.”
Mark Goodier: “Well almost, with our first band. They are the biggest British rock band in the world.”
Andy Crane: “This is single number six from Hysteria, Def Leppard...”
Mark Goodier: “Woh!”
Andy Crane: “... Rocket!”

 [20] DEF LEPPARD: rocket. The biggest British rock band in the world? Iron Maiden make a note to never appear again on Top of the Pops.

But enough of that. These write ups have been given a new lease of life so lets use it to talk about camera positioning. This edition opens with an odd, and very dark, shot of the audience. The camera then rises up to reveal our hosts in the crow's nest. But where is the camera? The crow's nest sits at the join of the two arms of the main stage and the camera has been placed behind the stage right arm, in the gap between the back of the arm and the black drapes used to cover the studio wall. This is why the crowd shot looked so murky, they've been gathered in a part of the set that was never lit or designed to appear on camera.

This angle also allows a good look at the painted flat that hangs behind the crow's nest. I think it's been there since the twenty fifth anniversary party revamp, 31/12/1985, but you don't normally get to see it because it's behind the hosts. We get a much better angle here, although it's partially obscured by a combination of Mark Goodier, some bloke, and a couple of heart-shaped balloons. The logo is a canvas flat hung from the ceiling (it's gently swinging backwards and forwards, and you can see one of the ropes suspending it from the lighting grid) with the Top of the Pops logo stuck on; the big white circle in the middle casts a shadow.



06/03/2024

Film Review- Dune Part 2

 

This is a proper thrill of a movie which faithfully represents the book while keening towards making as exciting a film as possible. It sets a different pace from the first part being dynamic and exciting where that was thoughtful and moody while succeeding in painting a place that seems realistic. Even though there are plenty of digital effects they are rendered to fit in with the picturesque locations. The book is famously knotty, filled with the internal thoughts of many of the characters and this film captures that aspect even better than the first part without resorting to endless narration. There are also some of the most thrilling battle sequences you’ll see peppered through the film. If part one had a stillness, part two barely stops for breath and is certainly the zippiest two and three quarter hour film I’ve seen. At the end I felt like I had sand in my shoes.

Spoilers follow in this review...



 

01/03/2024

Reading the original Dune novel

 

With the second part of the film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune now with us, I have been re-reading the book and oddly I’ve done it in two parts. I’d hoped to finish it in 2021 to post just before the first film was released but circumstances meant I had to stop half way. So, in a way that paralleled the film this year I’ve finished the book and completed this post before the second film! It’s a hefty tome as you might imagine and despite the reach of the movies there is still some material left out though this is not one of those book versus film comparison articles. Rather I wanted to re-live the novel itself.



28/02/2024

Happy Twenty Ninth!

 

Are you a leapling? Tomorrow is 29th February – that date that only comes round every four years because of temporal oddities. As people ascribe superstition to anything a bit out of the ordinary there are a lot of Leap year traditions many of which relate to the old fashioned concept that only on this day a woman can propose to a man. In ye olden times only a man could propose marriage so women had to wait till 29 Feb to do so. Nowadays of course a woman can propose on any date of the year if she chooses and people don’t accuse her of breaking the laws of the land nor does she change into a turnip. So where does all this nonsense come from? The answer it seems involves an unlikely mash up of the Moon, Julius Caesar and St Patrick.

 


25/02/2024

Top of the Pops 2 & 9 February 1989

 

Housekeeping: The Mega folder I've been using to download these episodes has gone very AWOL. If anyone can use the comments to link me to another source of episodes then that would be really helpful. If not, these write ups have come to a very unceremonious end...
(John- Which would be a pity because nobody wants to end in February. Plus these are the most viewed posts on the blog and without them the whole future of the blog is at risk. And possibly also the world. OK maybe not the world. So if anyone knows of an alternative source - as the iPlayer only keeps a random handful un-chronologically - that would be wonderful. Otherwise Chris is going to start reviewing every episode of Weather starting in 1950)

Words by Chris Arnsby

02/02/1989
Steve Wright. “Hi!! Hello!! Good evening!! Hello and welcome to another exciting Top of the Pops!! I'm Steve Wright!! This is Simon Mayo!! Tonight we're going to be in full effect!!”
Simon Mayo: “We certainly are and we're going to check out the hat parade first of all. At number five, on the Love Train, this is Holly Johnson in the crowd in the middle there.”
Simon Mayo: “Yeeah!!”

Steve Wright died on 12th February this year. After I'd written up this episode. A quick re-read has shown I didn't say anything rude about him -this time- and given me cause to reflect. Steve Wright was part of the Radio 1 furniture by the time I tuned in so I don't really remember having an opinion about him. If you tuned in between 3-5.30pm he was just there. What I do remember is his move to host the Breakfast Show in 1994 which drove me away from Radio 1. The antics of Wright and his Posse were too much for my fragile 7am state as I was preparing for a day at work. And that was it, until I started watching the Top of the Pops repeats. Steve Wright's first show was 07/02/1980 and going back I find I was surprisingly positive about him:

 “It's Steve Wright's first show. He only started as a Radio One DJ in January 1980 so he's really been rushed on to Top of the Pops. Simon Bates had to wait ages for his turn. The classic line-up I remember is almost completely in place. Only Gary "sloppy bit" Davies is missing. So how does Steve Wright do? Not bad. It's a more polished performance than Simon Bates gave at the end of 1979 but Steve Wright needs to learn to stop waggling his head around so much.”



23/02/2024

Reviews- Madame Web, Dumb Money

 

Madame Web is not the dud that critics have been making it out to be, it’s a perfectly enjoyable and sometimes tense thriller that can be enjoyed even if like me you don’t know the intricacies of Spiderverse lore. It is true to say though that the premise would be more suited to the nuances of a TV series and can come across as sluggish in this format. That said, when the film does ramp up it does include a couple of stand out action sequences.