Rock Follies (TV Mini Series 1976) Poster

(1976)

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8/10
Rock on
Keshti29 December 2011
I remember staying up all night when this was on for an interminable PBS fundraiser in New York. I was so wild about it I even donated whatever it was...$50?, anyway an astronomical sum for me then so that I could snag the album. (as in vinyl 12-inch.)

Darling husband recently bought me a turntable so that we can listen to the old LPs again, and "Rock Follies" was one of the first on. There are really only 3 good songs ("The Road," "Good Behavior," and "Sugar Mountain") and all of them are sung by Julie Covington.

It was a fun little program; thinking of picking up DVD next time in England.
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7/10
Enjoyable little British Series
mhlong2 December 2011
This is the type of show/movie/presentation I like writing about because it is rather obscure and only the 'faithful' will fully understand. PBS in the States in the late 1970's and early 1980's brought over some highly enjoyable British comedic fare, with 'Monty Python's Flying Circus', then 'No, Honestly', 'Rock Follies', and of course, 'Are You Being Served'.

It was, like, once you got hooked on watching one, you would stay to see the next. Rock Follies which followed the trials and tribulations of three young women who hoped to make it as a rock singing group was probably the weakest of the four as it seemed to lurch between biting comedy and bitter sweet drama with each episode showing the girls barely making it in whatever venue they were unceremoniously dropped, and then failure settling in.

If you really enjoy seeing a musical group starting from scratch and following their lives as they face numerous hurdles both professional and personal, with what would appear to be an insider's look at the music business, and you enjoy the music, then I would recommend this. And for those who remember that rather 'infamous' advertisement for a hair product, you'll get to see who Rula Lenska was. One of the first celebutantes (who really was neither, just like some we know today ;)

It's not for everyone's tastes but British tele can be that way to an American audience. Now when does Season 2 of Downton Abbey return?
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8/10
Rather a good series
GwydionMW22 August 2006
I watched it and enjoyed it - clever comedy, and the relations between the chief characters kept changing, not re-cycling the same plots as many comedies do.

The three woman come from different backgrounds and have very difference approaches to life. Each also has a distinctive relationship with the man in their life, though this too alters, with some characters growing more important and others dropping out.

I know nothing about the actual pop world but it seemed very plausible, the way ambition would lead to a loss of ideas, not necessarily leading to success.
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As good as I remember it!
JFWAF3 January 2006
Was it really thirty years ago I watched this?

I haven't seen it again since then, but I recently got a chance to watch the British DVDs (the series isn't released in the USA). Seeing the awful boyfriends (Spike and the commune, Jack & Carl) rang all too true - I was at University with some of these guys. The music, of course, is excellent - what else would you expect from Roxy Music? But what really tickled me was seeing several of the 1981 Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy cast - Stephen Moore, David Dixon and Simon Jones (plus, of course, Rula Lenska). In fact some of Stephen Moore's lines as Jack sound as though they could have been written for Arthur Dent - at one point he even complains about Thursdays.
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10/10
Presenting The Little Ladies!!!
kidboots17 September 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Like the other reviewers I saw this show when it was first on TV and loved it and now, wanting to wallow in the nostalgia from my youth, I bought the series on Amazon, hoping I wouldn't find it too twee. I needn't have worried, I found myself rocking along to the songs (I could even remember them to hum along with) and laughing at the satire which, back in those days, would have gone over my head. I obviously hadn't changed (much) since my rebellious, protesting days. I, too, knew people like Spike (Billy Murray), the commune gang, people who, misguidedly, wanted to change the world as long as it was on their own terms.

"Rock Follies" was really a biting satire - working class Dee (Julie Covington), repressed Anna (Charlotte Cornwall) and "jet setter" Q (Rula Lenska) meet at an audition for a ghastly musical comedy (think Annie meets the Wizard of Oz in 1920s Chicago!!). Anna gets the lead role (how, I never figured it out - maybe it was her enthusiasm!!) The show goes belly up but the show's pianist, Derek (Emlyn Price) creates "The Little Ladies" and with the girl's diverse talents!! (Dee sings raw rock, Anna loves musical comedy (initially) and Q thinks she should have been around in the 30s!!) they try to forge a career in the world of rock and roll. Julie Covington as Dee is really the only one who can sing. It is glaringly obvious when they each have their solo spots!! I can remember at the time she had a huge hit with "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" - it was number one for so long in Australia, you used to turn it off when it was on the radio!! - and then nothing!! I, too, wondered what happened to her.

Each show follows their rise (and fall) and disillusion with the industry in general. It seems everyone wants a piece of the Little Ladies, even the people they care most about. They go on the road, get involved in a porn film and then meet one of those ghastly agents who wants to homogenize their sound and energy. Each episode also features a big production number that mirrors the storyline. Highlights are "On The Road", "The Rock Follies", "Time Off for Good Behaviour" and the surreal "Glenn Miller is Missing". Rula Lenska, I think, was absolutely beautiful. Charlotte Cornwall started out with a pageboy, obviously in keeping with her "middle class" values, but then got a "poodle perm", one of those awful styles of the 70s, that, I thought, really gave her a hard look, but maybe that was the point.
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6/10
Adored this when I was 18, but now I only adore the soundtrack
cherold10 March 2020
I saw this as a teenager and thought it was fantastic. I recall it being a hilarious and involving story of a struggling girl group. I loved the songs and bought the album, and it's one of my favorite albums to this day.

43 years later I watch it again, and, well, it's awful.

At least the first episode is awful. I stuck with it for nostalgia's sake and it does pick up as it moves away from the Little Ladies pre-rock life to their time on the road. Most of the acting is weak, but Dee Covington is terrific as the edgiest member (she's also easily the best singer, later having a hit with Don't Cry for Me Argentina).

Their adventures are a mix of awful clubs, awful men, awful money men, awful choreography, way too many long speeches on this and that, and really terrific songs by Andy McKay (all the songs were apparently rerecorded for the album except Glenn Miller is Missing, and while the originals aren't as polished they're still generally quite good).

The great irony of Rock Follies is it's a series about the powerlessness of talented nobodies and the ways they are chewed up and spat out, and the idea for the series was actually stolen from a group called Rock Bottom, which came up with the idea as a vehicle for themselves and were quite upset to see it wind up as a vehicle for others (they eventually won a lawsuit). It's exactly the sort of thing that would happen in the series, and it's amazing to consider people creating a show critiquing the exact sort of exploitation they were involved in.

I saw the second season of Rock Follies years after the first, and I thought it was a terrible follow up, but now that I realize the original wasn't that good I suppose the sequel may have been about equivalent.

I don't know how much of my disappointment in this series is the difference between me at 18 and 60, and how much is that the quality of TV was so much worse in the 70s that there was a pretty low bar. Ultimately, the 17-year-old me recommends this, the 60-year-old me says don't bother, and both of us encourage you to get the soundtrack.
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3/10
Glossy, annoying and over-hyped silliness.
khunkrumark17 August 2018
It's a TV series about theatrical types performed and written by theatrical types, and it doesn't work well on the small screen.

Julie Covington does the tomboy bit which probably inspired Sinead O Conner... Charlotte Cornwell does the mousy middle-aged housewife going through a crisis and Rula Lenska struts around doing a disturbing impersonation of a Las Vegas drag act.

This Thames Television production exploded onto the British consciousnesses in early 1976. I was 16 at the time with much better things to do to occupy my time than watch this. I was left out of a lot of conversations! It was all anyone talked about and the 'girls' sold a zillion magazines touting 'girl power' before it was even invented!

The songs sound like they would do well in a musical. The song 'Little Ladies' is simply unbearably painful to listen to. The acting is so camp and unpolished that it also belongs on a stage where it can never be accurately recalled, too. Unfortunately it's there for all to see.

The peripheral characters are caricatures. The boyfriends are so absurd and annoying that you just want to reach into the screen and punch them senseless. There's lots of shouting, lots of over-acting and lots and lots of smoking! It's allegedly a satire, but I didn't see any. Then again, it's 2018 and maybe 40 years has changed the meaning of the word.

There are some good cameos, though. Kathy Staff (Nora Batty/Mrs Blewitt) is a hoot as the waitress in episode two. Whoever plays the seedy agent in the first episode is funny, too, especially when he's explaining how he wants the Annie Hall production to be a bit more sexed up.

But these moments are too few and far between. In summation... it's just a noisy and annoying mess.
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I liked this program.
soundmxr20 August 1999
The adventures of three young women from diverse show biz backgrounds meet at an audition and form a rock trio with hilarious results; including a tour where one of the venues is a Scottish country & western bar. Great performances and good singing and outrageous humor. Good songs too! ("I used to be in talkin' pictures, talkin' pictures, if you know what I mean" is a hoot.) British humor at its best by, ironically an American author. My thumbs are way up. Love to see this again - it was run on PBS. RB
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1/10
Er...
Skylightmovies2 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
So

Was British TV really this bad? Or was this a one off experiment?

A bunch of 40 year old drag queens, one pushing a Norman Wisdom act, another babbling empty lines like a runaway train and a tall one with an irritating sand paper voice, are thrown together to sell this wafer thin tale about a flat chested girl group with cringeworthy contrived attitude.

Apparently the songs made it to the top 20 but knowing how that set up is manipulated to push ideaologies, even that is not enough to warrant eye ball time for this amateur theatre production.

Maybe this is how middle whites spoke in the seventies I wouldn't know, but the cliché 2D characters are desperately trying to tell a story of the trials and tribulations of the performance world.

Covington who did a good job shrieking 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina' seems to have sunk without trace after a tiny career in pop, Cornwell probably stuck to TV bit parts and Lenska married into the incestuous TV family set up which say a lot about the person Lenska was connected with and then divorced shock horror, whenever, later.

The supposed (boy)friends of the leads pave the way for the future invented stereotype of , unsupportive , lazy, vain partners of the invented stereotype of the struggling yet emotionally empowered woman.

In the 90's women talked of the being subservient while mixing with users and abusers in the music business and then eventually leaving or selling their soul for 10 years of fame and nice clothes. The trio here are mouthy, aggressive and unwilling, so why any of these industry folk would want to spend time and money on pushing these hags into a pop career is beyond me.

So, if you make it past the second episode , I imagine that is because you have seen everything ever created for visual entertainment and are reduced to scraping the BBC/ITV barrel.

Rock Follies is seriously embarassing.
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classic 70's pop serial
andyb-411 August 2000
This was an enjoyable series with a musical storyline. It featured the trials of an aspiring all girl band, with entertaining and still memorable songs.

Julie Covington could sing, and had a huge number 1 hit soon after the show ("Don't cry for me Argentina"). Charlotte Cornwell could barely sing, but Rula Lenska could barely sing or talk.

I'm surprised this hasn't developed more of a cult following.

Whatever happened to Julie Covington, she seemed to dissappear completely?!
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