Pan's People

Pan's People was a 1970s British TV dance troupe associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops. In an era before pop videos, they danced to songs whose original artist was not available to perform them live. They were not the first dance troupe to appear regularly on TOTP - they were preceded by The Go-Jo's in the programme's early days, before Pan's People replaced them in May 1968. They did not start off with weekly appearances, initially it was less frequent.

The troupe consisted of: Babs Lord, Ruth Pearson, Dee Dee Wilde, Louise Clarke and Andi Rutherford. Later Cherry Gillespie and Sue Menhenick replaced Andi and Louise. The best known of the dancers is Babs Lord, as a result of her marriage to the actor Robert Powell and her subsequent career as an amateur yachtswoman, and world explorer, having made several trips to the Himalayas, the Sahara, both Poles and the jungle in Guyana. She holds the remarkable record of being the oldest housewife to visit both the North and South Poles.

Flick Colby, the group's choreographer, initially also danced but stopped to concentrate on the choreography . She has had a successful career as a choreographer.

As well as TOTP, they also appeared on TV as "Pans Peoples in concert", the dancing routines benefitting from the greater rehearsal times and production available.

The group functioned as a single unit taking decisions collectively and managing themselves. With the team members approaching their 30s, Pan's People disbanded. Their place on TOTP was taken by first Ruby Flipper (a group with two male dancers) and then Legs & Co. and finally Zoo. These were also choreographed by Flick though ultimately not as successful. The coming of the music video also meant that dancers were less needed, and they made their last regular appearance on 29 September 1983, dancing to "What I Got Is What You Need" by Unique.

Quality of the dance

At the time, and later, they were criticized for an over-literal interpretation of song lyrics into movement. This was chiefly due to very short lead times in preparation before recording of the show - if a song that was due to be featured took a move down the charts then it would have to be replaced by one that was moving up, giving the dancers only a day to prepare (the charts were issued on a Tuesday with TOTP being recorded on Wednesday). Notable among these and often featured on TV:

• Dancing around some dogs, one of which left the set shortly after the start of the performance, for Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Get Down".

• Dressed up as King Kong and other horror movie characters whilst interpreting "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and his Crypt-Kicker Five.

• Controversially (at the time), Legs and Co. took on a punk look for a performance of "Pretty Vacant" by The Sex Pistols.

• Dressing as bank robbers (complete with stripy jerseys and swag bags) for an interpretation of "Bankrobber" by The Clash, thereby circumventing the band's refusal to appear on the show.

References in popular culture

In a 1974 episode of Porridge, Fletcher (Ronnie Barker) fantasises in his prison cell about having a night out. "I could call up a couple of birds - those darlings who dance on Top of the Pops, what are they called? Pan's People," he says. "There's one special one - beautiful Babs... I don't know what her name is."

External links

• The Unofficial Pan's People homepage
• BBC Pan's People page
• The Pan's People Online Fan Club
• Pan's People discussion thread

See also

• Hot Gossip, a later mixed group, that were more risqué and sexually explicit featuring on the Kenny Everett Video Show on the commercial TV station ITV.