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Song and Dance Spectaculars

Grace Dent invites you to lose yourself on a joyful journey back through the Â鶹Éç archives, celebrating the broadcaster's song and dance extravaganzas of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Grace Dent invites you to lose yourself on a joyful journey back through the Â鶹Éç archives, celebrating the broadcaster's song and dance extravaganzas of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s – in many ways, the fantastic forerunners to Strictly Come Dancing. They were fun, family-focused and had fondue levels of cheesiness as well as a host of stars such as Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Lulu, Twiggy and Shirley Bassey. Also featured are some of the biggest dance troupes of the time, including Pan’s People and The Young Generation, one of whose members gets special attention - a pre-Blue Peter Lesley Judd.

All the weird but usually rather wonderful musical performances that Grace has uncovered existed in a strange parallel universe to the pop charts of the time – not remotely cool, even then, but looking back the only way to describe them is ‘fabulous’.

1 hour

Music Played

  • Cliff and Nolan Sisters, Pearly Gates and Three Degrees

    Finale: Love Train

  • Harry Nilsson

    River Deep, Mountain High

  • David Lindup

    French Kick

  • Manuel & His Music of the Mountains

    Rodrigo's Guitar Concerto De Aranjuez (Theme From 2Nd Movement)

  • Barry Blue

    Do You Wanna Dance

  • Frankie Valli, The Four Seasons

    Silver Star

  • Gilbert O’Sullivan

    Get Down

  • Buddy Miles

    Life Is What You Make It (Part 2) (Part 2)

  • Typically Tropical

    Barbados

  • Tom Jones

    She's A Lady

  • Alan Parker

    Punch Bowl

  • Duran Duran

    Wild Boys

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Grace Dent
Producer Simon Goretzki
Producer Simon Catt

Broadcasts

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