27. You’ll have to take us as you find us

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Also:  It's Saturday Night 2. An autograph before you go 3. A new kind of game show 4. A rising exasperation with the quantity of dirt 5. The whole thing suddenly fell apart 6. Synthetic propensity 7. It was destined to be an anti-climax 8. This is your show now 9. The awesome scale of our wastefulness 10. Hands up those who couldn't care less 11. Together We’ll Be Ok 12. Decide the shape of ITV in the 1980s 13. Alan is too commercial 14. It worked like a dream 15. Older men, doing school boy tricks 16. Killing the Golden Goose 17. People love us to be sexy 18. The manure is worth more than the cattle 19. They were big in the States and we noted that 20. I’m still aggressive and I’m still handing out the insults 21. A new style of lunatic humour 22. The Habitat-bean-bag-hessian-wallpaper brigade 23. Thoroughly sinful 24. All carrots should be scraped, sliced and cooked 25. Back then it was radical stuff 26. Whatever they do, we can do it better 27. You'll have to take us as you find us 28. Entertainment that keeps on the move 29. It's the public that has to pay 30. The last we saw of either of them was their sad faces 31. Just shoot the bastard 32. Britain could clearly be facing its darkest hour 33. Any enthusiasm we may have had for continuing discussions is waning 34. It was considered by LWT and then put in a bottom drawer 35. Watch the redoubtable Terry take off 36. I thought it might be terrible and I wouldn’t enjoy it at all 37. Kamikaze Mastermind 38. We haven’t moved into luxury 39. We are investing in people 40. Delivered impeccably 41. He has to allow you to do your bit 42. All the anticipation of the great emotive point 43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas 44. Let’s get straight into this 45. Unedifying Greed 46. We’ve got the fucking lot! 47. Scope for humour and danger 48. Pure Megablast 49. There’s lots of killing, but not much else 50. I wanted to make sure it was going to be disastrous 51. Oh dear – Auntie’s playing bingo! 52. A Shrivelled Little Thing 53. I shouldn’t have accepted it 54. We would be the spoilsports 55. The Most Sexless Person In Television 56. They’d have strung me up if I hadn’t chosen him 57. Is there some way to play with the internal constituent parts? 58. The most important entertainment programme of my time 59. The plumply pretty female duo 60. The audience just sort of started to freeze on him 61. More pilots than British Airways 62. There's going to come a time when you'll have to go to the BBC 63. A slightly pretentious manifesto 64. Things Look Very Precarious 65. It’s no good doing all the same old people all the time 66. That’s just not funny Bobby, it's corny - just don’t do that 67. Well bottom’s not funny 68. We Are The Funnymen 69. The powers that be listened to Denis 70. Stretchers never go up stairs 71. I was in obscurity until this series 72. I don’t care if he doesn’t like me 73. There’s such a passion for nostalgia right now 74. I Heard A Seat In The Stalls Go ‘Gerdonk!' 75. This is your show, folks, and I do mean you 76. There’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1! 77. Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge 78. You wanna bet on it? 79. The yarns worked their tried and tested magic 80. The Charge-And-Shout Brigade 81. I sat for a moment in silence, then turned in my chair and left the stage 82. We just weren't allowed into UK terrestrial television 83. Beadle’s A Prick 84. The interviewer always has to know when it's best to keep his or her mouth shut 85. Can you come up with a good solution for the Murder Weekend mystery? 86. He's not a goody- goody hero 87. The Sexism, The Dolly Birds, The Catchphrases 88. The feel of Saturday night 89. 1990 Who would employ an ex-alky with lowered self-esteem 90. It were a right smack in the face 91. Look Straight Into My Eyes And Everything Will Be Alright, That's A Promise 92. That's the last thing I was expecting, Jim 93. The characters and situations are real 94. Oh Man, There Go All My Women Fans 95. A Double Order of Talent 96. If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine 97. NTV brings you ... empty rooms! 98. You’re BBC, you shouldn’t be here 99. If this doesn’t work out, we’re both snookered! 100. The humour of Beadle comes through humiliating people! 101. To allow such bilge on TV is an insult to the audience 102. Like a cup of cold sick 103. A litre of gin, ecstasy and crack cocaine 104. A reliable tent pole for Saturday evenings 105. It is in the cutlery drawer 106. Welcome to the new Saturday night 107. Congratulations, you have got the fucking Gen Game 108. The programme has done extremely badly and will be dropped after this series 109. Building the excitement and tension to a crescendo 110. He gives us our spirit of unity; we’d all like to strangle him 111. The worst programme currently on terrestrial television 112. I award the city state of Milton Keynes 100 credits! 113. There’s nothing that makes people scream, ‘Did you see that?’ 114. It was of a standard frankly well below what the public would want 115. Waxing An Ape Is My Ambition 116. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even 117. The penalty shoot-out is the greatest ever endgame 118. 200 black boxes are strapped to the back of a cross-section of the nation 119. Better For You, Better For All Of Us 120. I mean who on earth thought that was a good idea? 121. I’m sure the tune was in there somewhere 122. This Time, You Decide 123. King of trash, that’s me 124. It’s about rejection now 125. They lost what Popstars was all about 126. Win the ads 127. A name in search of a series 128. Getting grief from the papers 129. I’m so pleased to be back on television 130. Saturday nights haven't been this interesting for 10 years 131. It’s the Usual Nonsense 132. The trip of a lifetime Epilogue: Why Haven't You Written a Series of Articles on Tuesday Night Telly?

Although the BBC and ITV spent much of 1982 attempting to revitalise light entertainment through experimentation with new formats and new kinds of stars, there was still room for old-school variety, and in particular, talent shows. Granada Television’s head of light entertainment, Johnny Hamp led the charge.

Having produced The Video Entertainers for the network in 1981, Hamp wanted to develop a nationwide forum for new acts. He came from a show business background (his father was a magician), and has an obvious eye for talent (he produced the first television promotion of the Beatles), and so such programmes were tailor-made for him. Prior to 1981, his track record had been excellent. Bernard Manning, Cannon and Ball and Paul Daniels were all doing good business on Saturday nights and all were discovered by Hamp. “The faces project the talent,” he said when asked to explain how he was able to spot future stars. His intention was to build upon his earlier work and create a programme that would allow his newest discoveries to perform their act in their entirety. This was to be the Granada Television series, Success, which began transmission at 6.45pm on Saturday 8 May 1982.

Lining up were Stan Boardman, Roy Walker, Mick Miller, Dustin Gee, Tammy Cline, Lisa Stansfield and singer/composer Gerard Kenny. None of them were new to television (Stansfield had been discovered on Hamp’s The Video Entertainers) however, this was the first time they had been given their own show. With the exception of New Yorker Gerard Kenny, all of the featured acts hailed from the north of England, and from working men’s clubs.

“I am always in pubs and clubs seeing as many as 90 acts a week,” explained Hamp. “The north started the trend in big time club entertainment but now there are not so many clubs. There’s still a mine of talent to be tapped – the search is just that little bit more difficult.” Explaining the thought process he employed when seeking out stars Hamp commented, “some performers can bring the house down in pubs and clubs but simply don’t translate their success on television. Similarly, there are acts who make an instant appeal on television but don’t go over on the stage … It’s not enough to be a good singer. They have to spread their wings and exploit other aspects of their talent. Roy Walker, for instance, is a very pleasant singer, but this talent has never been exploited because there just hasn’t been time.”

The promise of Walker actually singing provoked some excitement in the tabloids with the 22 May 1982 edition of The Sun proclaiming that “Comedian Roy Walker is getting ready to make his mother a very happy woman. He is going to sing – seriously. Walker, 42, star of shows like The Comedians and Licensed for Singing and Dancing, is a guest of impressionist Dustin Gee on Success. And next week’s Success is devoted to his own life story, with sketches, jokes and a song written especially for him by Les Reed. Walker says ‘my mother has always believed comedians are men with red noses and funny suits who fall about. She doesn’t think telling funny stories is any way for a grown man to earn his living. Every now and then she says to me, ‘Can you just sing a song for the neighbours?’ So this is it – for me Mum.’”

Lisa Stansfield was to appear on Success’ 15 May edition, and like Walker, it was to bring great satisfaction to her mum. “When we came home after appearing in The Video Entertainers, the neighbours had put up a sign in our garden saying, ‘Watch Lisa Stansfield on television,’” recalled Marion Stansfield on the eve of her daughter’s Success debut. “We couldn’t afford champagne, but we bought a cheap bubbly and celebrated. Actually, the success worried me, I thought perhaps some people might resent it; that other children might be jealous”. Although only 16, Lisa Stansfield was a veteran. On one occasion at a talent show in Rhyl, television presenter Jess Yates had placed her in the runner-up position, however it was at the Talk of the North Club Talent contest in Eccles where she found her lucky break. Johnny Hamp, one of the judges, booked her for The Video Entertainers. “Apart from her voice she has a great personality,” he remarked, “and I am convinced she will be a big star”.

That Stansfield would go on to greater things is testament to Hamp’s continuing ability. However, not everyone he uncovered could achieve such success. Tammy Cline appeared on 5 June edition, already hailed “Britain’s best female country singer, as decided by two major polls in the music press”. Born in Hull on 16 June 1953, Cline began her performing career with local band The Falcons, marrying guitarist Rod Boulton; with whom she went on to form the duo Tammy and Dave Cline. A number of solo appearances on radio and television followed but her big break came with an appearance on the ITV talent show, Search For A Star.

Like all the others, an appearance on Success, represented her first prolonged television exposure and a chance to consolidate her career to date. Amid all the excitement of an impending primetime television appearance, Cline (real name Marilyn Boulton) remained resolute that the “big time” would not change her: “You’ll have to take us as you find us,” she remarked in 5 June edition of TV Times. “There’s no side to us. If you can’t be natural what else can you be?” As if to underline the fact, her husband Rod, was compelled to add, “one of the simplest things in life is sewing, and any woman who makes a meal out of it is ridiculous.”

Next: “Entertainment that keeps on the move”