Escape from the past – Jack Doherty May 2nd 1997

sourAs a counterpoint to the National Lottery video, here’s a very rare escapee from the same round of promotions.

The Jack Doherty show was a fairly short lived affair on a new UK TV Channel, Channel 5. Now there were a couple of problems with Channel 5. Firstly it arrived at around the same time Sky did, so there wasn’t enormous interest in it. And secondly it was broadcast on UHF Channel 36, which was the same channel as used by practically every VCR and Computer/Games Console in the country, necessitating a lot of retuning to stop interference. While this was happening, the transmissions were relatively limited.

So not a lot got recorded from it, and what was recorded was often in dreadful quality. The Venn intersection of reception, interest, and taking care to record properly was very small, so even before the attrition caused by the decluttering fad (VHS tapes being large and rather useless looking, so sadly were first in the skip when the mania struck), there weren’t many recordings from Channel 5.

This video has been constructed from two sources. The intro is a typically grainy recording by a fan not really in the reception area. And the second one is a fairly decent, if damaged, recording that popped up on Youtube a couple of years ago. Sadly I haven’t been able to make contact to get hold of the original tape, so this, carefully resized and with the sound joined up and normalised with the intro, is the best there’s going to be unless we find another copy somewhere.

The photo is a little mean. At around 2:23, Wendy has a little yawning attack, beginning with the rather sour face pictured. Her heart was probably elsewhere: this was the period she was only occasionally in the band and looking to a new career in music education.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.