It’s Only Rock N Roll Episode Review
Brief: Rodney is the drumless drummer in Mental Micky’s band, ‘A Bunch Of Wallies’. Delboy takes on the job of manager, getting them an abortive St Paddy’s night gig at The Shamrock Club. Will they be a hit or miss? Thursday nights Top of the Pops will reveal all.
Transmitted: 14.03.1985
Duration: 30 minutes
Viewing Figures: 13.6 million
Rodney has joined a new band, and Del immediately capitalises on this by booking them into The Shamrock Club to play for the St Patrick’s night festivities.
Taking his place as the band’s manager, Del winces his way through their rehearsals, and when the Shamrock gig results in a fight, the band are forced to leg it, leaving the instruments behind them.
When Rodney finds out the musical equipment has vanished, he contacts the police and helps them with their enquiries. When tell sees Rodney with the constable, he quickly distracts the officer and pulls Rodney aside. It turns out that Del had the instruments on sale or return, and he’d taken them back because their band was so bad.
Rodney’s dreams of showbiz fame have been shattered, but he goes ballistic when he sees his group performing their old hit single on Top of the Pops and realises that without Del’s interference he might have made it to number one.
Episode Observations
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, At the end when Del is on the phone half his shirt is open at the top and he goes out like that. On a personal note i dont normally spend time looking at blokes chests, just to clear it up.
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, When Del and Rodney are chatting in the garage, Del says that he understood Rodney having a dream of becoming a rock star so he “could have the Capri Ghia…all that!” If Del thought a Capri Ghia was such a posh motor, he must have been over the moon when Boycie sold him the Prattmobile a few years later!
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, Del tells Monkey he’s had the dolls for a week, shortly before seeing A Bunch Of Wallies on Top of the Pops. On the day he bought the dolls, Rodney was still in the band and another member said later he reckoned his mate’s cousin could get them a contract. So in the space of one week, the group have played the Shamrock Club, parted company with Rodney, found a new drummer, got some instruments of their own (which they never had previously), gained a contract, recorded a single and appeared on Top of the Pops! How likely is that?
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, how did Rodney manage to tell Uncle Albert that he’d organised a date for him at the old folks beano AND start watching Top of the Pops in Albert’s room in just five seconds? That was the gap between Rodney entering the room and Albert leaving it!
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, Del switches off Top of the Pops just before Rodney tells him that he’s organised Albert to take the woman from the Laundromat on the old folks beano “on Thursday”. But as Top of the Pops, until recently, was ALWAYS broadcast on Thursdays, surely he would have said “NEXT Thursday” to avoid confusion?
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, the garage is far larger and faces a wall unlike the garage seen in “Time on Our Handsl”, there it has a other garages opposite and is much smaller.
- In It’s Only Rock and Roll, when Del’s on the phone to Liam at the Shamrock Club, he starts playing Dianne by the Bachelors. However, when he puts the phone down, and turn the volume up, it jumps to a different point of the song!
It’s Only Rock N Roll Script
The script will be downloadable from here
Did You Know?
Did you know that Ex Radio1 DJ Mike Read appeared in this episode. He is on the TV presenting the group on Top of The Pops.
Mike had forgotten all about this appearance in the top sitcom. Mike was recently watching an episode at home with his family and suddenly realised that he was watching himself !
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