HERALD SCOTLAND
TV: Damien Love reveals his pick of the week’s TV
21 September 2014
Wednesday, September 24
Oh! You Pretty Things
9pm, BBC Four
With contributions from the performers and their stylists through theorists to the fans who tried copying the looks in the clubs and on the street, the second episode of this considered rummage back through the pop wardrobe focuses squarely on the 1970s, from glam to prog to post-punk in all their pomp. There’s the obligatory Ziggy-era Bowie montage early on, but the programme really gets going with an in-depth appreciation of Suzi Quatro, looking back to her younger self circa 1973, stomping through Can The Can on the Christmas Top Of The Pops in her leather biker-catsuit combo: a performance hailed by the narration as “an unlikely, but monumental moment for women’s sound and style”. Elsewhere, Rick Wakeman is on hand to discuss the equally monumental moment when he first decided to wear a cape (“That’s the way to stop looking like a demented spider”); Zandra Rhodes and Brian May look recall their low-key collaboration during the Queen days; Bob Hope gets surprised by feminist protestors; and Sex Pistol Glen Matlock considers the seemliness of bondage trousers for the aging punk.