171 New Faces

First  watched  : 1974

In  1973  Opportunity  Knocks  got  a  brash  new  rival  talent  show, again  on  ITV. Although  New  Faces  fished  from  the  same  pool  of  club  acts  and  deluded  freaks  the  crucial  difference  was  that  the  act  had  to  please a  panel  of  show  business  experts  to  progress  rather  than  the  less  discerning  TV  audience. Not  surprisingly  New  Faces  was  much  better  at  producing  durable  winners, some  of  whom  are  still  high  profile  entertainers  today.

The  panel  of  four  was  drawn  from  a  rotating  cast  of  luminaries. The  most  notable  were  creaky  old  musical  hall  comedian  Arthur  Askey  and  record  producers  Mickie Most  and  the  man  above , Tony  Hatch. They  had  to  give  up  to  ten  points  each  in  the  categories  of  "Presentation" "Content"  and  "Star  Quality" . Hatch  quickly  became  the  show's  star  with  his  plain-speaking  brutality, once  despatching  a  useless  guitarist  with  a  treble  zero  score. Sometimes  he  had  to  be  smuggled  out  of  the  studio  afterwards. Most  was  pretty  waspish  himself  but  managed  a  veneer  of  politeness. It  did  give  rise  to  the  suspicion  that  poor  acts  were  deliberately  being  chosen  by  the  producers  to  be  publicly  eviscerated.

The  first  winners  I  remember  were  Manc  impressionist  Aiden  J  Harvey  because  he  was  living  in  Littleborough  at  the  time,  although  I  don't  remember  ever  bumping  into  him ,  and  young  soul  band  Sweet  Sensation  who  got  to  number  one  with  Sad  Sweet  Dreamer.  Later  came  Our  Kid  , the  youngest  of  whom  was  born  in  the  same  year  as  me  and  who  nearly  pulled  off  the  same  trick. Then  of  course  there  were  the  young  gun  comedians  and  political  soulmates  Lenny  Henry  and  Jim  Davidson.

The  series  ended  in  April  1978   but  was  revived  in  the  late  eighties  with  former  winner  Marti  Caine  presenting  ( in  place  of  Derek  Hobson  whose  career  went  straight  down  the  tube  when  the  series  finished )  and  gobby  TV  critic  Nina  Myskow  trying  to  fill  Hatch's  boots. It  lasted  three  series  and  has  the  dubious  distinction  of  foisting  Joe  Pasquale  on  us.

In  recent  years  there's  been  a  lot  of  fatuous  comparisons  with  the  likes  of  The  X  Factor   usually  omitting  the  crucial  distinction  that  Hatch  and  Most  were  talented  people  in  their  own  right  ( particularly  the  former )  with  real  creative  input  into  the  records  they  made  not    just  self-satisfied  business  people  piggybacking  on  the  talents  of  others.