TV Shows & Documentaries
‘READY, STEADY, GO!’
‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ was one of the premier British TV pop shows of the Sixties decade and ran for a three year period with 175 episodes from Friday August 9 1963. Guests on the first episode were Billy Fury, Pat Boone, Chris Barber, Brian Poole & the Tremeloes, songwriter Mitch Murray and dancers Georgina Burgess and Pauline Boty.
Hosts were Keith Fordyce and Cathy McGowan, although Fordyce left in April 1965 and for a time there were co-hosts such as David Gell and Michael Aldred.
The show, broadcast each Friday evening at 6pm, began with the slogan “The weekend starts here,” to the strains of Manfred Mann’s ‘5-4-3-2-1’ (although the Surfari’s ‘Wipeout’ was the initial theme tune used during part of 1983). Toward the end of the series, Manfred Mann’s ‘Hubble Bubble, Toil And Trouble’ became the theme tune.
During its three year run, virtually every major British hit artist made an appearance on the show, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Who, the Hollies, the Troggs, Marc Bolan – in addition to a host of American acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and the Byrds. The final episode was a live broadcast on Friday December 23 1966 under the title ‘Ready, Steady, Goes!’
Elkan Allan was the executive producer and Vickie Wickham the producer and the show was originally broadcast from the tiny Studio Nine at Television House in Kingsway, London. It later moved to larger studios in Wembley.
Allan, who was 43 at the time, was to point out that his 14-year-old daughter Mary came up with the shows’ title. Commenting on it, he said, “When I first thought about a regular, once-a-week pop show I was stuck for a title. Then Mary came up with ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ Ever since I’ve looked to her for the kind of help she, being a teenager, could give me. She’s a lot closer to the public we’re catering for, after all, I mean, how much can a forty-three year old know about teenage tastes?”
Wickham, who was born in 1939, was to become manager of Dusty Springfield and Labelle and co-wrote the lyrics to ‘You Don’t Have to Love Me’ with Simon Napier-Bell.
Among the directors were Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Daphne Shadwell and Peter Croft. Rollo Gamble directed two episodes.
There were also a number of ‘Special’ editions, including ‘The Sound of Motown’ on 28 April 1965, hosted by Dusty Springfield, featured the Supremes, the Temptations, the Miracles, Martha & the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder and ‘The Otis Redding Special’ on 16 September 1966 which featured Otis Redding, Chris Farlowe and Eric Burdon, 1966 also saw a special edition ‘Ready Steady Who’, featuring the Who.
The largest ratings for the show came on 20 March 1964 when the Beatles were featured as special guests and mimed to ‘It Won’t Be Long’, ‘You Can’t Do That’ and ‘Can’t Buy Me Love.’
Something of an odd-job man was Paul Raven who did a bit of dancing, helped out with security and was a ‘warm-up’ man, before he changed his name to Gary Glitter.
In April 1965 the series changed and began featuring live performances rather than have the acts mime to their records and the name was changed temporarily to ‘Ready Steady Goes Live.’ This episode, hosted by Keith Fordyce and Cathy McGowan, featured Donovan, the Kinks, Tom Jones, Manfred Mann, Cliff Bennett & the Rebel Rousers, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, the Roulettes, Dionne Warwick and the Artwoods.
Cathy McGowan, a 19-year-old girl from Streatham was working as a secretary for £10 a week when she answered an advertisement which sought a teenager to appear regularly on the show. There were 600 applicants, but Cathy was selected, with Allan commenting, “"She was awfully gauche and raw and desperately nervous, but she was worth taking on because she was obviously terribly switched on in a teenage way".
The teenager proved a huge success and became known as ‘Queen of the Mods.’
There was a spin off show in 1964 called ‘Ready Steady Win’, which set out to find ‘another Beatles.’ The judges included Brian Epstein, Bill Haley and Brian Matthews and the winner was a London R&B band called the Bo Street Runners.
‘Ready, Steady, Goes!’, the final show, was a combination of interviews and musical performances and featured Mick Jagger; Chris Farlowe; the Who; Paul Jones; DaveDee, Dozy Mick & Tich; Eric Burdon; Alan Price; Lulu; Keith Relf and Paul Samwell Smith; Julie Felix; Cat Stevens; the Merseys; Peter & Gordon; the Small Faces and the Spencer Davis Group.
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