Ready Steady Go! was hardly one of the sixties survivors,
with few traces left of the show that did so much to define the decade. But,
says Garth Cartwright, a new book manages to capture the spirit of a legendary
programme and its moment in time.
“The weekend starts here” went the tag line to a dynamic new
TV show and, between August 1963 and December 1966, this truly was the case for
many British youth, as Ready Steady Go! began its broadcast at 6pm every
Friday.
Heralded by some as the greatest music TV series ever, Ready
Steady Go! attained ‘legendary’ status decades ago but, frustratingly, appeared
to have vanished leaving few traces, more mythic than tangible.
This situation has been changing, though, first with a BBC4
documentary, screened last March, and now a huge hardback book, Ready, Steady,
Go! The Weekend Starts Here: The Definitive Story of the Show That Changed Pop
TV.
At first glance author Andy Neill’s book appears the
literary equivalent of those multi-album box-sets (containing demos, retakes et
al) that are aimed at uber-fans: it weights a couple of kilos, documents each
episode and is jammed with photos and memorabilia, the perfect present for a
1960s obsessed, Brit pop anorak. Upon reading I quickly realised that Neill –
biographer of The Who and The Faces – has written far more than a glorified
fanzine: Ready, Steady, Go! was, he convincingly argues, popular entertainment
television that helped change both British TV and society.
Indeed, RSG! Gave young women leading media roles (as
presenters and producers), embraced African American culture in a way no other
British media previously had and caught youth culture’s fizz, the sense that
the young were no longer going to remain deferential to their elders. More than
any other document of that era – including the Beatles’ films – the series
captured what made the 1960s so dynamic.
Ironically, RSG!’s founders gave little initial thought to
challenging establishment values. Instead, journalist Elkan Allan, having been
appointed Head of Entertainment at Rediffusion, a media company created to make
programmes for ITV, realised with the onset of Beatlemania that a pop programme
would likely succeed.
Allan then hired 20-year old Cathy McGowan – who beat 600
other applicants who had answered an advertisement for “a typical teenager” -
her chic dress sense, long fringe and unforced ebullience ensuring she
instantly became the “face” of RSG!.
McGowan had no media training and it showed: she got names
wrong, asked naff questions, giggled and behaved like the bands’ buddy. In
doing so McGowan made teens across the nation feel she was one of them and so
grounded RSG! in their reality.
Filmed live in Rediffusion’s Holborn studios each Friday –
the rest of the week they shot children’s TV here – Ready, Steady, Go! featured
both British and international artists miming to their new releases while
Wickham sourced the best dancers from clubs across the West End so to keep
energy levels high and ensure fashions and dances were fresh.
Black was just beginning to be seen as beautiful and RSG!
took mod enthusiasm for African American music, clothes, dance, slang and more
into the UK mainstream. Kenny Lynch, the self-described “black Cockney”, was
also a regular performer. Considering the Race Relations Act wasn’t passed
until 1965, RSG! was groundbreaking in its multicultural vision.
In 1964, 24- year-old American director Michael Lindsay-Hogg
came on board and emphasised RSG!’s pop art feel, pushing the lighting, titles
and camera angles to a degree never seen before on British TV.
Unknown new talent was invited on, so giving Donovan, David
Bowie and Jimi Hendrix their first TV exposure. Peter Blake and Peter Cook were
both regularly on set – Ready, Steady Go! capturing London’s zeitgeist like
nothing else. By 1965 many artists were insisting on performing live – miming
deemed uncool (unless it was ironic: a classic clip features members of the
Rolling Stones and McGowan goofing about while pretending to mime to Sonny
& Cher’s I Got You Babe).
The BBC, previously having struggled to showcase popular
music on TV, launched Top of the Pops in 1964 to compete with RSG! and, by
focusing only on hits, soon captured far greater viewer numbers. But, beyond
helping sell vast numbers of 45s, Top of the Pops had little resonance while
Ready, Steady, Go! energised and informed British culture as much as the
artists it featured.
Unfortunately, like many other 1960s-era TV series, most
episodes of Ready, Steady, Go! were wiped once they had been screened so
then-expensive videotape could be reused.
Lindsay-Hogg managed to get several episodes recorded for
his own collection and these are all that remain today. Dave Clark – of the
Dave Clark Five – purchased this footage and issued it on VHS in the 1980s but
nothing’s ever been available on DVD.
German music behemoth BMG now own this footage and, as they
published Neill’s book, surely are intent on making it available: British pop
culture’s lightning rod has the book it deserves, now let’s hope the surviving
footage get similarly regal treatment.
Ready, Steady, Go!
The Weekend Starts Here: The Definitive Story of the Show That Changed Pop TV
by Andy Neill is published by BMG
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