Saturday 4 August 1962

Panel: Rose Brennan, Brian Rix, Jimmy Young, Susan Hampshire

Producer: Johnnie Stewart

Records played:
Yesterday (check title) – Polka Dots (Philips) MISS
Seven Day Weekend – U S Bonds (Stateside) HIT
Steptoe And Son – Geoff Love (Columbia) HIT
Goody Goody – Frank Sinatra (Reprise) MISS
The Cure – Smitty Williams (MGM) MISS
I Sat Back And Let It Happen – Leroy Van Dyke (Mercury) HIT
Swahili Papa – Springfields (Philips) HIT
Sealed With A Kiss – Brian Hyland (HMV) HIT
Little Sue – Dowlands (Oriole) MISS

Producer Neville Wortman had joined the BBC after a spell as a cartoonist for ITV and time on Cool For Cats: “I was hoping to ease my way into the BBC. Twist had become one of the rages and I was going to direct a programme on that with Barry Lupino whose sister was Ida Lupino, the American film star. He got smashed up in a car accident and Johnnie Stewart was brought in. He had been doing Juke Box Jury and so he came out of that. The twist didn’t last very long and nor did the show. It was nicely shot though, a good show.”

Producer Neville Wortman: “I was asked to pick it up as it had got very staid. It had become more of a family show than something for teenagers. Bill Cotton Jr and I were the two youngest producers at the BBC – I was just under 30.”

Producer Neville Wortman: “I was determined to get more interesting panellists on Juke Box Jury, some people who had a real interest in popular music. I tried to build up really good panels and I filmed it in a different way too as I placed the cameras in unusual positions. I featured a lot more of the audience and got their expressions. We used to look for characters and I would get people out looking for characters whom we could invite to the show. We would walk to someone in the street and say, “Please come”. We were fighting head on with Thank Your Lucky Stars. They had a great style of programming for teenagers and I knew Philip Jones very well. They had a very stylish programme and Juke Box Jury wasn’t that. We were fighting for our lives with that programme. The BBC wanted to grab an audience at six and they thought that if you had them then, you should have them through the evening.”