MOJOEYEWITNESS
THE RISE AND FALL OF READY STEADY GO!
Pop music was boiling over in 1963. But where could the hip viewer see it on British television? Enter revolutionary show Ready Steady Go!, where the sounds, fashions and attitudes of the mid-’60s tumult went nationwide with help from the Fabs, Motown, Stones, Who and more. Then Top Of The Pops stole their thunder. “We booked who we liked,” say the movers and scenesters. “It was like, ‘Hey wow, we’re on TV!’” On your marks… The Weekend Starts Here.
Interviews by LOIS WILSON
Dusty in London: Springfield performing on Ready Steady Go! in 1964.
Dezo Hoffman/Shutterstock
Vicki Wickham: Elkan Allan came up with the idea for Ready Steady Go! and its slogan ‘The weekend starts here’. He was head of light entertainment at Rediffusion TV. I was out of work – I came from BBC radio – and he handed the programme over to me and some friends. We didn’t have a plan. We made it up as we went along. We filmed it in the basement in the Rediffusion headquarters building in Kingsway [in Central London]. It was very small but the only studio free, and in the day Muriel Young broadcast children’s programmes from it.
Mike Hurst: The Springfields were asked to do the pilot [on July 26, 1963] with Brian Poole & The Tremeloes. There was a small circular stage and chairs and tables set out for the audience who were from Rediffusion. It was very much an embryo put together on a shoestring. Keith Fordyce presented, I thought he was too old. I was expecting someone more hip.
Brian Poole: We were playing Twist And Shout and the audience got up on the tables and started dancing, and they got told to stop. But I think it was Elkan who said, “OK, let’s try this a different way.” The tables were pushed aside and everyone started dancing again, and they got the cameras to come and move through the audience. It was absolutely brilliant. We got asked to do the first episode [on August 9, 1963]. We were the first band on. Billy Fury was there, Pat Boone… Joe Loss judged a dance contest and we wheeled in a clothes rail of my outfits and I talked about tab collar shirts. It was the old and the new crossing over.