552 David Essex Showcase

First  viewed  :  10  July  1982

This  show  only  lasted  for  one  season  but  gave  rise  to  an  abiding  musical  affection.

David  Essex  Showcase  was  a  Saturday  evening  talent  cost  on  BBC  One  hosted  by  fading  seventies  pop  star  David  Essex  who  naturally  got  to  do  a  song  himself  as  well  as  acting  as  MC. The  programme  was  broadcast  live  from  the  Harrogate  Centre  in  Yorkshire  and  the  theatre   audience   voted  via  a   primitive  keypad  which  act  they  wanted  to  see  the  following  week . Unlike  Opportunity  Knocks  , the  acts  could  only  make  one  reappearance  before  the  grand  final. The  ultimate  winner  was  promised  their  own  show.

Many  of  the  acts  were  musical  and  a  rough  rule  of  thumb  was  that  they  hadn't  yet  made  the  Top  40  , although  whoever  slipped  Aneka  in  there  must  have  had  a  very  poor  memory.
So  it  was  that  on  the  third  show, which  was  the  first  I  watched, Talk  Talk  were  on  performing  their  new  single  "Today".  They  were  under  some  pressure,   having  been  billed  as  EMI's  big  new  signing  for  the  year   and  touring  with  Duran  Duran  but  their  first  two  singles  hadn't  set  the  world  alight.  I  hadn't  paid  much  attention  to  their  first  one  "Mirror  Man"  partly  due  to  hostility  in  the  music  press  towards  EMI  ( a  hangover  from  The  Sex  Pistols )  which  ensured  very  negative  reviews. I  thought  the  second  one  "Talk  Talk"  was  quite  good  if  a  bit  too  close  to  the  Duranies  so  I  was  reasonably  well  disposed   to  them  beforehand. However  I  thought  "Today"  was  terrific  and  they  soon  became  my  favourite  band.

Talk  Talk  didn't  win  their  heat  - we'll  come  back  to  that  in  a  moment-  but  "Today"  became  their  breakthrough  hit  regardless. In  fact  that  pattern  was  repeated  a  few  times  with  a  number  of  other  "losers "  scoring  substantial  hits   on  the  back  of  the  programme :

• The  Belle  Stars   The  Clapping  Song 
• Wavelength  Hurry  Home
• Toto  Coelo  I  Eat  Cannibals
• Thomas  Dolby  Windpower

Only  Mari  Wilson  and  the  Wilsations  managed  to  both  win  their  heat  and  get  into  the  Top  40  ( with  Just  What  I  Always  Wanted ) .  It  also  gave  a  necessary  fillip  to  Essex's  own

 chart  career  as  "Me  And  My  Girl  ( Nightclubbing )"  became  his  first  hit  for  a  couple  of  years.

As  suggested  above, the  audience  did  make  some  pretty  rum  choices. Talk  Talk  were  beaten by  Captain  J J  Waller  ( now  a  respected  photographer )  , a  sort  of  comic  performance  artist  in a  WWII  flying  helmet. Waller's  first  appearance  was  ropey  enough  but  he  didn't  have  enough material  for  a  third   so  his  "turn"  in  the  final  consisted  of  holding  a  torch  in  each  hand  and roaming  round  the  stage  making  light  patterns  with  them. A  child  of  four  could  have  done  it equally  well  and  one  presumes  the  audience  were  heavily  bribed  to  applaud  him. The  only  time  I  thought  they  got  it  right  was  with  White  and  Torch  whose  performance  of  "Parade"  saw  off  Chris  Barrie. Splendid  though  it  is, the   single  could  only  get  to  number  54.

The  eventual  winner  was  Philip  Jap , a  blatant  Bowie  wannabe  who'd  somehow  managed  to  convince  Trevor  Horn  he  was  worth  producing. Despite  Horn's  involvement, his  single  "Save  Us"  was  turgid  beyond  words; he  wouldn't  have  known  a  decent  hook  from  his  elbow. Still, clad  only  in  a  pair  of  tight  trousers  he  gave  an  energetic  performance  of  art  school  miming   and   also  exposed  that  the  musical  acts  were  lip-synching  by  posing  with  an  air  mikestand  and  having  his  drummer  join  him  at  the  front  while  the  beat  continued. He  saw  off  subsequently  successful  comic,  Richard  Digance,  in  the  heats  and  then  came  through  in  the  final. How  his  own  show  panned  out  will  be  covered  in  due  course.