Legs & Co.

Legs & Co. were the dance troupe on the BBC's Top Of The Pops between 1976 and 1981.

The all-girl dance troupe replaced Ruby Flipper, the multi-racial and mixed-sex group of dancers who had replaced Pan's People in May 1976. Legs & Co were put together and managed by choreographer and founding member of Pan's People, Flick Colby, and by fellow Pan's People dancer Ruth Pearson.[1]

Members

The original Legs & Co. dancers were:

Menhenick (who replaced Louise Clarke as a member of Pan's People in 1974), Hammond and Cartwright had been members of Ruby Flipper, and it was decided that they should remain as part of the new line-up. Three further dancers were chosen to complete the sextet: Gill Clark,who had been a finalist in the Miss UK 1976 contest, Rosemary Hetherington, a student at the Italia Conti stage school, and Pauline Peters, who had appeared on stage in various West End productions.

The original Legs & Co. line-up stayed together longer than any of the various Pan's People line-ups, from October 1976 to March 1981. During their time on the show, only one personnel change occurred within the troupe; when Pauline Peters left the group on 19 March 1981, she was eventually replaced on 28 May 1981 by singer and dancer Anita Chellamah.

Legs & Co. on Top of the Pops

By the time of the new troupe's first appearance on Top of the Pops on 21 October 1976, dancing to the Average White Band's "Queen of My Soul", they had not come up with a name for themselves. For their first appearances, they were introduced as the "Top of the Pops" dancers, while their name was listed as "??????" on the end credits of three editions. The BBC decided to allow viewers to select a name for the new dance troupe via a competition promoted on Top of the Pops by Ed Stewart, after the girls made their dancing debut, and on the BBC children's programme Blue Peter. The name "Legs & Co." was chosen as the successful name. This was announced on the Top of the Pops of 4 November 1976,[1] with the competition winner in attendance, Elaine Coombes.

During their tenure as the Top of the Pops dance troupe, Legs & Co. performed routines to songs of various musical styles. They interpreted songs by punk bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Clash who never appeared in the TOTP studio (although the Sex Pistols did eventually make a studio appearance when they reunited for the "Filthy Lucre" tour in 1996), and were often seen in routine to the disco tracks of the time.

As well as their regular appearances on Top of the Pops, Legs & Co. appeared on other television programmes of the time, including Tiswas and Blue Peter. On the latter series, the troupe danced to Mike Oldfield's arrangement of the programme's theme tune.

Male Legs

Although the line-up of Legs & Co. was female, some routines from 1976 to 1981 involved male dancers.

The most notable was Hot Gossip dancer Floid Pearce,who was also a member of Ruby Flipper in 1976 with Legs' Sue Menhenick,Patti Hammond and Lulu Cartwright.He made nine guest appearances with Legs & Co. on the following routines:

On 13 August 1981, an Anglo-Italian male dancer called Alex (who later became a TOTP "cheerleader" and one of the show's warm-up artists) danced with Gill Clark to the "How Deep Is Your Love" section of Startrax's "Startrax Club Disco".

On 24 September 1981, Lulu Cartwright performed a routine with a male dancer called Jeremy to Diana Ross and Lionel Richie's "Endless Love".

The end of Legs & Co. on Top of the Pops

Legs & Co. made the last appearances as dancers on 'Top of the Pops' in October 1981. In their final months on 'TOTP', a period which coincided with the obvious emergence of a party atmosphere, Legs & Co. began to integrate more with the studio audience and could often be seen dancing in the background while a band performed on one of the stages. Nonetheless there are many fine dances in their final year including Lay All Your Love On Me, Hold On Tight and Hands Up. During the summer of 1981, Patti Hammond took a break from the troupe.

It's often stated that the troupe's last performance was dancing to The Birdie Song by the Tweets. Although this edition, transmitted on 15 October 1981, was the last to feature them performing in their own right, the very last edition to feature Legs & Co, and to credit them in the end titles, was transmitted on 29 October 1981 where they were relegated to dancing in the audience to performances of "Happy Birthday" by Altered Images and "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)" by Haircut One Hundred.[1] Gill Clark also performed a short solo during a performance by The Fureys and Davey Arthur.

On 5 November 1981, a week after Legs & Co.'s final on-screen appearance, Zoo, the final featured dance troupe to appear on Top of the Pops, made their debut.

On 17 December 1981, Sue Menhenick made a final appearance on TOTP, with a solo routine to "I'll Find My Way Home" by Jon & Vangelis. Flick Colby gave Sue this final solo dance as a thank you. This marked Menhenick's final appearance as a dancer on Top of the Pops after over seven years, making her the second-longest serving dancer on the programme, after Ruth Pearson. Sue was credited as a member of Zoo in the end credits for the programme, making her unique in being credited for appearing as a member of four different dance troupes in her time on TOTP.

Additionally, the whole troupe appeared uncredited on 31 December 1981 'Hits of 1981' 'Top of the Pops', dancing closely behind Shakin' Stevens whilst he sang 'Green Door' (originally aired 13/08/1981).

Also, "Boogie Fever: A TOTP2 Disco Special" aired 21/07/2007 presented by Steve Wright, features a performance originally aired on 26/10/1978 of Patti, Lulu and Pauline dancing to Don Hartman's "Instant Replay".

Surviving Legs and Co performances

Most of the girls' work on Top Of The Pops still survives in the BBC archives, however some of the shows from 1976 and 1977 were wiped by the BBC. Nevertheless, it appears that all the missing performances have survived on home video tapes,and are in the hands of a few collectors. The DJ and TOTP presenter David Hamilton returned the 31 March 1977 show to the BBC, much to the joy of fans who got to see Legs' dancing to David Soul's 'Going In With My Eyes Open'.

Life after Top of the Pops

After their last appearance on Top of the Pops, Legs & Co. spent a further four years performing at corporate events and cabaret shows. They also appeared in a 1982 television commercial for the Milk Marketing Board as part of their Gotta Lotta Bottle campaign. The line up, however had changed. Hammond, Cartwright and Menhenick were joined by Patricia McSherry, who also danced with Pan's People, Sandra Easby and Liz Green.

The original Legs & Co. line-up were reunited in late 2000 to take part in a documentary on the history of Top of the Pops. In the programme, all of the six original members discussed their memories of their time on the show. The documentary was first transmitted on New Year's Day 2001, repeated in December 2001, and a revised repeat was shown on 30 July 2006, the same day the final regular edition of Top of the Pops was broadcast.

The six original members also appeared on an edition of Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway in January 2003 to surprise a member of the studio audience who had written to Jim'll Fix It as a child wishing to dance with Legs & Co., but whose request was ignored. The girls, minus Patti Hammond, along with the surprised member of the audience, later danced to Sister Sledge's "We Are Family", the first time members of Legs & Co. had danced on a British television series for 22 years.

In 2013 and 2014 Sue, Pauline, Lulu, Rosie, Anita and Mary (Pan's People/Zoo) all took part in online Q&A sessions. Their answers can be found in the "One for the Dads" website discussion forum.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Legs and Co". Top of the Pops 2. BBC. Nov 2002. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  2. ↑ "Legs and Co Q&A". One for the Dads.

External links

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