Hot Gossip
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Hot Gossip were a British dance troupe most notable for their appearance on the TV series The Kenny Everett Video Show, which aired on ITV in the late 1970s. It was created and choreographed by Arlene Phillips. The sexually suggestive dance routines, moves, gestures and costumes used by the troupe were considered very risqué, especially considering the early evening timeslot that the Video Show was broadcast in. Hot Gossip are often keen to claim that these risqué dance routines were not simply a result of the television programme and that they performed such dances since they were formed, 4 years before The Kenny Everett Video Show first aired.
Hot Gossip also made a couple of pop records, featuring Sarah Brightman on lead vocal. They scored a hit with I Lost My Heart To a Starship Trooper, a lightweight disco track that cashed in on the media hype surrounding the original Star Wars film. They went on to record an album in the early 1980s, Geisha Boys and Temple Girls, produced by the former Human League and then current Heaven 17/BEF member Martyn Ware. The album was a commercial failure.
Dancers who performed with Hot Gossip at one time or another before they disbanded in 1986 included: Donna Fielding, David Wilkins, Elvis Baptiste, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Perri Lister, Lorraine Doyle, Chrissy Wickham, Heather Alexander, Lyndsey Ward, Carol Fletcher, Jane Newman (formerly Colthorpe), Virginia Hartley, Wanda Rokikki, Kathy Burke,Nicky Hinkley, Sinitta Renet, Laura James, Alison Herlihy, Debbie Ash, Kim Leeson, Erin Lordan, Trudy Pack, Donette Goddard, Bonnie Bryg,Dominique Wood, Heather Seymour, Julia Gale, Lavinia Lang (Hudson),Sarah Miles, Debbie Astell, Sandy Easby, Heather Robbins, Lindsay Cole, Susie Waring, Amanda Abbs, Penni Dunlop, Debbie Fox, Madeleine Loftin, Yvonne Evans (Voyd), Frances Wingate, Bunty Bailey, Annie Dunkley, Titan Deakin, Floid Pearce, Mark Tyme, Richard Lloyd King, Roy Gale, Leonard Blackburn,Mark Elie, Barry Martin,Robert Gross,Tristan Rafael and Heavon Grant.
There was a spin off group from Hot Gossip in 1980 when Mark Tyme, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Carol Fletcher and Lyndsey Ward left to set up 'Sponooch'. They were featured in a BBC show called 'Dancing Girls'.
The Very Hot Gossip Show Telecast by Britain's Channel 4, this weekly variety series was a vehicle for Very Hot Gossip, fresh from their stint as background dancers on The Kenny Everett Video Show. On each episode, the terpsichorean stars danced to all the latest song hits, with appropriately colorful "visuals" from the special-effects people. When the series originally aired in 1982, much was made of the fact that all the female dancers were white, and all the male dancers were black. However, it was not race but ratings which prompted Channel 4 to drop The Very Hot Gossip Show after a single season, making room for a new variety show starring the kiddie musical-imitation troupe, the Mini Pops. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The group was once spoofed on The Benny Hill Show as "Hot Gossamer". A few real-life former Hot Gossip dancers went on to appear on the Hill show in its last years on the air as part of the Hill's Angels dance troupe.
