Rock Follies

Was it really thirty years ago I watched this?

I haven't seen it again since then, but I recently got a chance to watch the British DVDs (the series isn't released in the USA). Seeing the awful boyfriends (Spike and the commune, Jack & Carl) rang all too true - I was at University with some of these guys. The music, of course, is excellent - what else would you expect from Roxy Music? But what really tickled me was seeing several of the 1981 Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy cast - Stephen Moore, David Dixon and Simon Jones (plus, of course, Rula Lenska). In fact some of Stephen Moore's lines as Jack sound as though they could have been written for Arthur Dent - at one point he even complains about Thursdays.

This is the type of show/movie/presentation I like writing about because it is rather obscure and only the 'faithful' will fully understand. PBS in the States in the late 1970's and early 1980's brought over some highly enjoyable British comedic fare, with 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', then 'No, Honestly', 'Rock Follies', and of course, 'Are You Being Served'.

It was, like, once you got hooked on watching one, you would stay to see the next. Rock Follies which followed the trials and tribulations of three young women who hoped to make it as a rock singing group was probably the weakest of the four as it seemed to lurch between biting comedy and bitter sweet drama with each episode showing the girls barely making it in whatever venue they were unceremoniously dropped, and then failure settling in.

If you really enjoy seeing a musical group starting from scratch and following their lives as they face numerous hurdles both professional and personal, with what would appear to be an insider's look at the music business, and you enjoy the music, then I would recommend this. And for those who remember that rather 'infamous' advertisement for a hair product, you'll get to see who Rula Lenska was. One of the first celebutantes (who really was neither, just like some we know today ;)

It's not for everyone's tastes but British tele can be that way to an American audience. Now when does Season 2 of Downton Abbey return?

It's a TV series about theatrical types performed and written by theatrical types, and it doesn't work well on the small screen.

Julie Covington does the tomboy bit which probably inspired Sinead O Conner... Charlotte Cornwell does the mousy middle-aged housewife going through a crisis and Rula Lenska struts around doing a disturbing impersonation of a Las Vegas drag act.

This Thames Television production exploded onto the British consciousnesses in early 1976. I was 16 at the time with much better things to do to occupy my time than watch this. I was left out of a lot of conversations! It was all anyone talked about and the 'girls' sold a zillion magazines touting 'girl power' before it was even invented!

The songs sound like they would do well in a musical. The song 'Little Ladies' is simply unbearably painful to listen to. The acting is so camp and unpolished that it also belongs on a stage where it can never be accurately recalled, too. Unfortunately it's there for all to see.

The peripheral characters are caricatures. The boyfriends are so absurd and annoying that you just want to reach into the screen and punch them senseless. There's lots of shouting, lots of over-acting and lots and lots of smoking! It's allegedly a satire, but I didn't see any. Then again, it's 2018 and maybe 40 years has changed the meaning of the word.

There are some good cameos, though. Kathy Staff (Nora Batty/Mrs Blewitt) is a hoot as the waitress in episode two. Whoever plays the seedy agent in the first episode is funny, too, especially when he's explaining how he wants the Annie Hall production to be a bit more sexed up.

But these moments are too few and far between. In summation... it's just a noisy and annoying mess.

I saw this as a teenager and thought it was fantastic. I recall it being a hilarious and involving story of a struggling girl group. I loved the songs and bought the album, and it's one of my favorite albums to this day.

43 years later I watch it again, and, well, it's awful.

At least the first episode is awful. I stuck with it for nostalgia's sake and it does pick up as it moves away from the Little Ladies pre-rock life to their time on the road. Most of the acting is weak, but Dee Covington is terrific as the edgiest member (she's also easily the best singer, later having a hit with Don't Cry for Me Argentina).

Their adventures are a mix of awful clubs, awful men, awful money men, awful choreography, way too many long speeches on this and that, and really terrific songs by Andy McKay (all the songs were apparently rerecorded for the album except Glenn Miller is Missing, and while the originals aren't as polished they're still generally quite good).

The great irony of Rock Follies is it's a series about the powerlessness of talented nobodies and the ways they are chewed up and spat out, and the idea for the series was actually stolen from a group called Rock Bottom, which came up with the idea as a vehicle for themselves and were quite upset to see it wind up as a vehicle for others (they eventually won a lawsuit). It's exactly the sort of thing that would happen in the series, and it's amazing to consider people creating a show critiquing the exact sort of exploitation they were involved in.

I saw the second season of Rock Follies years after the first, and I thought it was a terrible follow up, but now that I realize the original wasn't that good I suppose the sequel may have been about equivalent.

I don't know how much of my disappointment in this series is the difference between me at 18 and 60, and how much is that the quality of TV was so much worse in the 70s that there was a pretty low bar. Ultimately, the 17-year-old me recommends this, the 60-year-old me says don't bother, and both of us encourage you to get the soundtrack.

I remember staying up all night when this was on for an interminable PBS fundraiser in New York. I was so wild about it I even donated whatever it was...$50?, anyway an astronomical sum for me then so that I could snag the album. (as in vinyl 12-inch.)

Darling husband recently bought me a turntable so that we can listen to the old LPs again, and "Rock Follies" was one of the first on. There are really only 3 good songs ("The Road," "Good Behavior," and "Sugar Mountain") and all of them are sung by Julie Covington.

It was a fun little program; thinking of picking up DVD next time in England.