Top of the Pops

Jonathan King too. No way was that getting broadcast.

Wowsers-probably the only time all 4 threats to the BBC4 Repeats (Saville, DLT Mike Smith and Joanthan King) were all in the same episode!

They were all in the 1000th episode as well- along with Gary Glitter.

Seemed to be quite a slow rise for him- he only became a regular presenter in 1988, only presenting 2 in 84, 1 in 85, 3 in 86 and not appearing at all in 87.

And he was one of the four pre-revamp presenters that came back after Stan Appel left, along with Simon Mayo, Mark Goodier and Nicky Campbell. I wouldn't be suprised if Gary Davies would have gone back too if he hadn't been sacked from Radio 1 a few months earlier.

Well, I did hear that Bruno's Radio 1 career was a bit touch and go in mid-85 - his shows weren't very good and I think there was a genuine thought that they wouldn't renew his contract after the first year. But they tried him out with a new producer who helped put him on the right track and the shows got a million times better. I presume while that was going on they didn't fancy offering him up for the Pops. That said, it always struck me as a bit weird that Bruno's first regular slot was drivetime, a really high profile gig, rather than working his way up through more off-peak slots.

As for his non-appearance in 1987, I assume that might have been because he was doing drivetime so was always on air when they were recording the show. In 1988 that presumably was less of a problem and Radio 1 were happy for him to pre-record some shows, and then from 1989 he moved off that slot.

Maybe it was also the case that Michael Hurll didn't rate him much, certainly when he becomes a more regular presenter in 1988, it was after Hurll had left. It's clear Hurll and Radio 1 had different opinions about who their favourites were - hence in 1982, Mike Read was very much the biggest DJ on Radio 1 with the breakfast show but only presented Pops a handful of times, whereas pretty much the most frequent presenter that year was John Peel. And indeed Mike Read is soon going to disappear on BBC4 for eighteen months, seemingly because Michael Hurll didn't want to use him. Funily enough when he returns he's a very frequent presenter in 1988, probably his most prolific year since the end of the seventies, despite becoming increasingly low profile on Radio 1. Indeed his last show is in February 1989 when he was barely on Radio 1.

Then you have the situation where Mike Smith was presenting between 1984 and 86- and being TOTP's most prominent presenter- when he wasn't on Radio 1 at all. Must have been the first time since the late 60s a non-guest presenter wasn't a current Radio 1 presenter. Sort of makes his non-repeats a bit more frustrating when you could argue he shouldn't have been there to begin with.

I think Janice Long had left Radio 1 for her last year or so on the show as well.

Interesting that Gary Davies has been back on the radio for the last couple of months presenting Sounds of the 80s on Radio 2- I wonder if the TOTP repeats have helped raise his profile?

Don't forget that 1982-1987 Read had another high profile TV gig, Saturday Superstore, so that may explain why he reduced his TOTP commitments.

He's covered for Steve Wright a few times prior to this as well.

Though of course in 1987, they do a live show on New Year's Day.



Yes, and it all seemed to come about with Sara Cox's 80s danceathon she did for Comic Relief last year, where Gary Davies appeared on Simon Mayo's show and said he hadn't been on the radio for a decade - concentrating on his business interests in music publishing and artist management - and that he missed it a bit. It looks like that gave him the bug again, and it's nice to hear him back.

Speaking of Steve Wright, he seems to have been a notable absense from the Story Of documentries. As he's on Radio 2 nearly every day he must be easy to pull over for an interview, like with Simon Mayo doing his for the Story of 86 from his studio. Presumably he just doesn't want to do it.