Inside Top Of The Pops 20 years since axe - biggest diva, worst guest and drugs fear

Inside Top Of The Pops 20 years since axe - biggest diva, worst guest and drugs fear EXCLUSIVE: It’s been 20 years since Top Of The Pops took its final bow. Now ex-producer Chris Cowey tells secrets from the set, from David Bowie to Prince and Madonna At the height of its success in the late 1970s, Top Of The Pops routinely pulled in 15 million viewers for its BBC1 Thursday night slot - peaking at 19 million in 1979. Launched on January 1, 1964, it ran for 42 years and boasted massive names from David Bowie to Prince and Madonna. But, by the time it was axed, it had been bumped from BBC1 to BBC2 and viewers had dwindled to around 1.5 million. To mark the 20th anniversary of its final weekly show on July 30, 2006, ex-producer Chris Cowey joined members of the creative team behind TOTP at London’s Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, where it took up residence in the early 2000s. Remembering the many TOTP artists, he says: “The best, most amiable, most fun to work with and most courteous was David Bowie by a million miles. He was an absolute gent. “Worst? I don’t know if you know the boyband called 5ive. Bless them, pretty boys but… Madonna was really hard working and The Spice Girls, when they were all together, were like five Madonnas. They were all single minded …and were very funny at times.” Chris, 65, had a few tricky moments with stars, like Mariah Carey, whose people told her she wouldn’t use her dressing room as ‘Mariah doesn’t do stairs.’ But when Chris had to tell her the pyrotechnic butterfly she wanted to use in her act was too dangerous, she shot her diva reputation down in flames. Telling her that doing the stunt would create him a pile of paperwork, he says: “She was like ‘oh Chris. You are so funny.’ She took it really well and was great actually. She was great fun.” Prince he says was another star with an “over zealous” entourage. He says: “I remember when Prince was at Elstree. There is a big corridor there, which is half a mile long. We were all told ‘when Prince walks up you can't have eye contact with Prince.’ That was not him. It was all the people surrounding him.” Chris, who produced TOTP for six years, also recalls The Red Hot Chilli Peppers being kicked off, after turning up to rehearsal in see-through white dresses with nothing underneath. He laughs: “It did not make the cut. They did have their socks on.” And Travis had a food fight after performing Sing for the show at Riverside, where stages were named after The Beatles - Paul, George, John and Ringo - but the scrap wasn’t aired. Former TOTP warm up man Danny Steggall, 62, who joined in 1981 and did 1,300 shows, recalls a fantastic appearance by Madonna. He says: “There was one time when we had Madonna on the show with her full live band. “There were some amazing people playing. The only person miming was Madonna funnily enough, so she could do her dancing.” One of Chris’ most memorable moments came when he recorded U2's song with Sting for 9/11 heroes, without BBC permission. He says: “I remember getting a call from Paul McGuinness [then U2 manager] after 9/11 and the Americans were doing a telethon. He said ‘me and the boys are here and Sting wants to do it too. Do you have a studio?’ “I told him we were squatting at Riverside. They came in on a Saturday … which was the UK's tribute to 9/11, A Tribute to Heroes, which won awards and we got name checks in the acceptance speech. I had to take a bit of a flyer on it, as I could not get hold of any BBC execs to get permission to spend the money. I just said ‘oh forget it. I will just do it.’" The show’s ‘temporary’ relocation from Elstree to Riverside Studios, to enable increased production of EastEnders, came in May 2001. Chris says: “We squatted at Riverside. It was the most brilliant time, as we were free of aunty BBC's apron strings and we could do what we liked. Riverside was an arts centre and it was a great place to work. Back then, Riverside was not the high tech beautifully crafted building that you see now. It was literally on the river, and by the back door we had a pet swan.” While the less hi-tech venue made it difficult to produce the show, Chris felt the advantages outweighed the drawbacks. He says: “It was quite a challenge as it was then but it worked”. It was nice to get away from the institutionalised BBC studios.” Still saddened by TOTP’s axing, Chris feels BBC bosses could have saved it if they had waited for the digital age to bed in. He says: “The show had an Indian summer towards the end. The week before I started it dropped below 2 million viewers and we got it up to 5.5m.” Chris, who quit in 2003 - making way for Andi Peters to take over at TOTP - continues: “It was fine when I left it, when I flounced out and slammed the door. “ Scathing about the new regime, who he says wanted to make it into a “kids’ karaoke show,” he adds: “It was not that much later when the BBC canned it. I think I described it at the time as ‘cultural vandalism’ rather grandly. If they’d just hung on until the digital thing really kicked in, TOTP could have been on YouTube. It could have been massive. They kind of shot themselves in the foot.” While Chris is nostalgic about his TOTP days, he also realises some of the acts would not be right now. When artists couldn’t appear in the studio, dancers at first from Pan’s People and then from 1976 to 1981 from Legs & Co would dance to their singles. Chris says: “Much as I liked Pan’s People back in the day, it is a bit like ‘dad rock.’ “Fleeting images of dancers is fine, but you have to be careful about the sexualisation of young men and women. You have to be careful not to be too exploitative. I have nothing against Pan's People, but that was then and this is now. “ Chris still harbours a desire to launch another music show, akin to The Tube - the Channel 4 live music series from the ‘80s, with presenters including Jools Holland, Paula Yates and Muriel Gray. He says: “The next time I do a music show I don't think it should be based on the charts. It should be like The Tube. Let me work on that. When we did TOTP, we used to start on a Monday morning with a blank piece of paper and I used to get the charts faxed to me on a Sunday, before it went out on the radio. I used to do a running order literally on the back of a fag packet. My best achievement is yet to come!” *Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, west London is celebrating its 50th anniversary. For events visit www.riversidestudios.co.uk