Pan's People were a 1970s British TV dance troupe who are best 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, but they had become an almost-weekly feature of the programme by early 1970.
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Members
The original Pan's People line-up consisted of:
- Louise Clarke
- Felicity "Flick" Colby
- Barbara "Babs" Lord
- Ruth Pearson
- Andrea "Andi" Rutherford
- Patricia "Dee Dee" Wilde
Flick gradually stood down from her dancing duties in Pan's People towards the end of 1971 to concentrate full-time on choreographing the group's routines. At the end of 1972, Andi Rutherford left Pan's People to raise a family, and was replaced by Cherry Gillespie. Cherry was selected at open auditions, and made her TOTP debut on 28 December 1972. She appeared after being "unwrapped" as a Christmas present by the other members of Pan's People, before joining them for a routine to Nilsson's "Without You". During 1974, Louise Clarke also decided to leave Pan's People to start a family. Her replacement was Susan "Sue" Menhenick, again chosen through an open audition. It is currently uncertain on which date Sue made her TOTP debut as a Pan's People member. A final personnel change within the troupe occurred during 1975, when Babs Lord and Dee Dee Wilde also left the group. It is believed that both Babs and Dee Dee left Pan's People at the same time. Their replacements were Mary Copse and Lee Ward. Mary and Lee made their debuts as Pan's Peoplettes on 5 May 1975. In a 1976 edition of Top Of The Pops, Blue Peter presenter Lesley Judd (a former member of dance troupe The Young Generation) became a sixth Pan's Peoplette for a one-off routine. The backstage rehearsals were then shown on Blue Peter a few weeks later. The final Pan's People line-up by the time of their final routines for TOTP in April 1976 were:
- Mary Copse
- Cherry Gillespie
- Sue Menhenick
- Ruth Pearson (the only remaining original member of Pan's People)
- Lee Ward
Work outside TOTP
As well as TOTP, Pan's People appeared in the 1974 "In Concert" series on BBC television. With more time for rehearsal and higher production values, the show featured various dance routines, as well as musical numbers performed by the girls themselves. The programme also featured a dance routine where Dee Dee and Louise gyrated on cushions wearing see-through costumes with sequined nipple covers.
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 performances
Among the hundreds of Pan's People routines for Top of the Pops, the most fondly remembered include:
- Dressing up as King Kong and other horror movie characters whilst interpreting "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and his Crypt-Kicker Five on 4 October 1973.
- Dancing around dogs, one of which left the set shortly after the start of the performance, for Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Get Down" on 25 December 1973
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. There's one special one - beautiful Babs... I don't know what her name is."
- The troupe were given one of the top accolades on British TV in 1975 when they were asked to perform alongside Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise on their BBC1 Christmas Day TV Show, one of the most popular TV shows ever shown in the UK. They danced to Brenda Arnau's version of Big Spender with Eric & Ernie posing as two new Pan's Persons.
- Pan's People were spoofed by Monty Python's Flying Circus in a sketch featuring an all-male dance group called "Pan's Pooves."[dubious ]
- The Benny Hill Show also spoofed the dance troupe as "Pam's People," with Benny Hill, Henry McGee, Bob Todd, Jackie Wright and Earl Adair appearing in drag. Ironically, two later editions of his show featured the late 1970s incarnation of Pan's People, one of whom, Louise English, went on to become a major cast member of the Hill show through the mid-1980s.
Life after TOTP
Even after their demise on Top of the Pops, Pan's People were much in demand for personal appearances. Flick Colby and Ruth Pearson kept the group going through until the late 70s as a club act. One new member during this period was Sarah Brightman, who went on to be a member of the more raunchy Hot Gossip, before marrying Andrew Lloyd Webber. The best remembered of the original members 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. Lord was the subject of BBC's This Is Your Life in November 2001. She appeared on the final regular weekly edition of Top of the Pops on 30 July 2006, the only member of any of the show's dance troupes to appear in person at the recording. Top of the Pops continued to use professional dancers until 1981, with Flick Colby remaining as the show's choreographer through the entire period. Pan's People were followed by a group called Ruby Flipper, which featured male and female dancers. However, there was pressure to return to the all-girl format, and after six months, Legs and Co. were created, and named after a viewer competition. Both Cherry and Sue from Pan's People featured in Ruby Flipper, with Sue going on to join Legs & Co. Ruth Pearson was Legs & Co's manager. Legs & Co performed every week on the show until 1981, when they were replaced by Zoo - a large troupe of dancers where individual members could be selected to perform each week, depending on the song. Flick Colby became the "Dance Director" for Top Of The Pops at this time. By the early 80s, however, Zoo's role shifted towards leading the audience, and eventually the group was disbanded, with some members remaining in the crowd as strategically-placed 'cheerleaders'.
