The Television Toppers, sometimes known as The TV Toppers was a female dance company who performed mostly on BBC TV
variety shows
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a compèr ...
but were associated mainly with ''
The Black and White Minstrel Show
''The Black and White Minstrel Show'' was a British light entertainment show that ran for twenty years on BBC prime-time television. Running from 1958 to 1978, it was a weekly variety show that presented traditional American minstrel and count ...
''.
History
Formed in the early 1950s by Leslie Roberts, a well-known cabaret show producer, who also created
The Silhouettes
The Silhouettes were an American doo wop/ R&B group, whose single " Get a Job" was a number 1 hit on the '' Billboard'' R&B singles chart and pop singles chart in 1958. The doo-wop revival group Sha Na Na derived their name from the song's ly ...
, The TV Toppers appeared on light entertainment and variety shows from the 1950s through to the 1970s. They were the resident dancers on the shows which each week featured stars of the time such as
Charlie Drake
Charles Edward Springall (19 June 1925 – 23 December 2006), known professionally as Charlie Drake, was an English comedian, actor, writer and singer.
With his small stature (5' 1"/155 cm tall), curly red hair and liking for slapstick, h ...
,
Josef Locke
Joseph McLaughlin (23 March 1917 – 15 October 1999), known professionally as Josef Locke, was an Irish tenor. He was successful in the United Kingdom and Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s.
Background
Born in Derry, Ireland, he was the son of a ...
,
Max Bygraves
Walter William Bygraves (16 October 1922 – 31 August 2012), best known by the stage name Max Bygraves (adopted in honour of Max Miller), was an English comedian, singer, actor and variety performer. He appeared on his own television shows, s ...
and
Anne Shelton. They appeared on the early series of the ''Billy Cotton Band Show'' and appeared in all 20 series of ''The Black and White Minstrel Show''.
The Toppers became celebrities in their own right. They hosted their own television show, ''Toppers About Town'', in which the dance troupe visited notable places around London.
[Box of Delights by Hilary Kingsley and Geoff Tibballs, p14, (1990), Papermac.] The nine programs were transmitted from 31 October 1952 to 5 June 1953.
They also appeared unbilled as the dance troupe in ''
The Dam Busters''.
References
Links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Television Toppers, The
Dance companies in the United Kingdom