The Hitman and Her

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The Hit Man and Her
Format Music
Presented by Pete Waterman; Michaela Strachan
Opening theme "Cocoon" by Timerider
Country of origin UK
Language(s) English
Production
Running time 120 mins
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Original run 3 September 1988 – 5 December 1992

The Hitman and Her was a British television dance music show hosted by Pete Waterman and Michaela Strachan. It ran almost continuously for over four years from September 1988 until December 1992.

Contents

[edit] Background

It was a late night clubbing show which toured various nightclub establishments, the first show came from Mr Smiths in Warrington on 3 September 1988, and the final show aired on 5 December 1992 from The Discotheque Royale in Manchester. The program was recorded and shown in the early hours of Sunday mornings, the second half of the Saturday/Sunday version was repeated during the following night. The earlier shows were spilt into two halves, the first at 1am, and the second at 4am, the LWT's Night Network magazine show sandwiched in between. When Night Network was axed, the Hitman and Her was moved to its 2am slot as a full two-hour show, a format in which it stayed through to the very last show.

Clubbers would arrive at the featured club hoping to have their moment of glory on television. Often members of the crowd would be plucked out to partake in games such as "Pass The Mic!", "Showing Out", and "Clothes Swap".

It was produced for Granada Television at first by Music Box Productions, then by Granada TV itself, and later by Clear Idea Productions through to the very last edition. The original on-screen title of the show was "The Hit Man and Her", but is nowadays more commonly spelt "The Hitman and Her".

Famously, Pete Waterman said that the idea for The Hitman and Her came to him when he turned on the TV late one night and the only TV station still on-air was featuring guest Elvis Costello talking about Irish politics.

A special edition of the Hitman and Her was broadcast as part of the ITV Telethon in 1992

Dale Longworth from the dance band N-Trance used to work on the show.

[edit] Music

The theme tune was called "Cocoon" and it was performed by Timerider. The track also appeared in the film The Fruit Machine (film), and Pete also used it as the signature tune for his Saturday morning Radio City show. It is still today used as the theme tune for Barnsley Football Club and is played as the team comes out onto the pitch at every home game.

Latterly, the show's theme tune changed to "Rofo's theme" by Rofo.

The show featured many artists from that era, particularly from the Stock Aitken Waterman stable, including Sonia and Sinitta. A CD was released in 2006 featuring a selection of some of the tracks regularly played on the show. Later editions of the show featured acts signed to Pete's international label PWL Continental for UK releases, such as 2Unlimited and Cappella.

[edit] Stage Dancers

Jason Orange was a regular dancer on the show, and thus was invited to later join famous boy band Take That. Another boy band, 911, included former Hitman dancers Jimmy ConstableWayne Stokes,Clive and Simon Dawbarn,Kevin Laing.

[edit] External links