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Pan's People were a British all-female dance troupe most commonly associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops, from 1968 to 1976. The group, founded and led by cho…
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Investigate this subjectPan's People were a British all-female dance troupe most commonly associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops, from 1968 to 1976. The group, founded and led by choreographer Felicity "Flick" Colby in December 1966, accompanied top 20 hits on the weekly show for eight years, when artists were unable or unwilling to perform live.
Pan's People were a British all-female dance troupe most commonly associated with the BBC TV music chart show Top of the Pops, from 1968 to 1976. The group, founded and led by choreographer Felicity "Flick" Colby in December 1966, accompanied top 20 hits on the weekly show for eight years, when artists were unable or unwilling to perform live. Pan's People appeared on many other TV shows in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and also performed in nightclub cabaret.
Pan's People succeeded the Go-Jos in May/June 1968 as the second dance troupe to make monthly appearances on Top of the Pops, when the series aired in black-and-white. They became a weekly feature of the programme following its revamp and time extension in January 1970 and continued for the next six years, giving their last performance in April 1976 when they were replaced by the short-lived Ruby Flipper, also choreographed by Colby. As a result of line-up changes, only one dancer, Ruth Pearson, appeared on the whole run.
Owing to their weekly exposure on British television, the group acquired a high profile. In addition, as a result of the increasing number of recordings from 1973 onwards known to have been preserved, the 'classic' line-up that existed from 1972 to 1974 is still visible today. The dancers in this line-up were:
Felicity "Flick" Colby (23 March 1946 – 26 May 2011) – member 1966–1976, of which dancer 1966–1972
Babs Lord (born 1945) – member 1966–1975
Dee Dee Wilde (born 1946) – member 1966–1975
Ruth Pearson (13 July 1946 – 27 June 2017) – member 1967–1976 and choreographer on some shows 1967–1970
Louise Clarke (3 September 1949 – 25 August 2012) – member 1967–1974
Cherry Gillespie (born 1955) – member 1972–1976
Colby was the principal choreographer of Pan's People throughout their existence.
The origins of Pan's People lie in the Dance Centre-based Katy-Dids, a six-"girl" jazz dance group formed in May 1964 comprising Linda Bywaters, Linda Lawrence, Jenny Ferle, Lyn Wolseley, Diane South and Ann Chapman. This group, renamed the Beat Girls following the commencement of their residence on The Beat Room in July 1964, subsequently appeared on many music and light entertainment TV programmes in the UK and the Netherlands.
Following numerous line-up changes, by December 1966 only two members were left who had appeared in The Beat Room, which ended in January 1965:
Barbara (Babs) Lord, who appeared from September 1964
Diane South – despite having appeared in the Katy-Dids and Beat Girls since 1964, she was never a regular, for she frequently stood in as choreographer when their choreographer/manager, Gary Cockrell, was unavailable.
The other members at this time were:
Felicity (Flick) Colby (1946–2011) – recruited in January 1966, though she already had a Dutch TV special (featuring the Beat Girls) built around her
Patricia (Dee Dee) Wilde – joined in March 1966; she had attended the Elmhurst School for Dance in Surrey
Lorelly Harris – joined around May 1966
Penelope (Penny) Fergusson – joined around May 1966; a former member of the Royal Ballet School.
Following an Equity-backed dispute with their management over pay rates for Dutch shows, three members, Colby, Lord and Wilde, walked out and formed a new group on 8 December 1966 in London. After considering other names, including Dionysus's Darlings they agreed on the name Pan's People, named after the Greek god Pan as the "god of dance, music and debauchery". By 18 December, they were joined by two of the remaining three Beat Girls, Harris and Fergusson. This marked the end of the Beat Girls as a regular act on British television; however, with new recruits joining Diane South, that group continued their Dutch engagements from January 1967, finally ceasing to perform in May 1968.
By Christmas 1966 Pan's People recruited Felicity Balfour (sometimes called Felicity Balfour Smith), who had briefly been in the Beat Girls, and had been a schoolfriend of Dee Dee Wilde. Thus they formed a sextet, with Colby also acting as choreographer.
Press accounts during the lifetime of the group omit the Beat Girls involvement from Pan's People's history; however, modern-day recollections include this time though sometimes incorrectly as a continuation of the previous group.
Their first TV appearance was in the Belgian TV programme Vibrato in January 1967, with the initial line-up.
In February/March 1967, Felicity Balfour's contract was terminated, due to her being unsettled in the group. After Pan's People, amongst other subsequent activities she performed with the Denise Shaune dancers, and worked in musical theatre, notably forming part of the original London cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Following an audition, Balfour was replaced by Ruth Pearson (1946–2017). Like Lord, Pearson was an original Beat Girls member, performing in the group until early 1966, then in a prior Beat Girls breakaway group, Tomorrow's People.
Pearson also did some of the group choreography over the first two years in the group.
The new line-up with Pearson appeared on The Dickie Valentine Show in September and October 1967, replacing the Beat Girls from the 1966 series. All the Pan's People in this line-up, except for Pearson, had appeared in the earlier series.
The group were to appear in a ballet performed with the Yardbirds in December 1967, but it was cancelled shortly before it was to be performed.
Also in December 1967, Penny Fergusson left to do other work, and was replaced by Louise Clarke (1949–2012).
In February 1968 three of Pan's People (Lord, Colby and Wilde) appeared on the West German show Beat Beat Beat with Tom Jones. This series was unique in that Ruth Pearson got sole choreography credit.
In the final change before the Top of the Pops era, Lorelly Harris chose to leave in March 1968, ultimately going into the Bluebell Girls. She was replaced by Andrea (Andi) Rutherford (1947–2015).
Colby's future husband, James Ramble, was manager, initially in partnership with promoter Rik Gunnell, but solo by the time of his marriage to Colby in 1967. He retained this role into 1970, the year
Source: Pan's People (CC BY-SA)
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