John Peel

Have you got a favourite TOTP performance?

"Frankie Goes to Hollywood's 'Relax'."

What did you make of the controversy surrounding that particular song?

"Well I was always told - the only reason Mike Read made his little speech about it was because he had a lot of time on his hands leading up to a news bulletin, which was like half past something and he had 20 seconds to go, and he didn’t have enough time to do what we usually did and get his guitar out and sing 'Rubber Ball'. So he thought 'I’ve got to say something' and he launched into his damning. I don’t know if this is true or not and I don’t really care."

Was there genuine interest from the show's producers in the songs?

"Not really, because the records virtually picked themselves. X number of records that had gone up in the charts and there would only be 8 or something like that. Those would be the ones. Obviously there was some kind of room for movement, but we weren’t involved in making any of those decisions. We just turned up and I quite liked that. You would meet people who you would assume were complete knobheads who actually turned out to be quite nice. Sometimes it worked the other way as well!"

Is it fun to present? 

In a nerve-wracking sort of way - yes!"

You and David Jensen took a different approach to presenting TOTP, didn't you?

Well I think basically neither of us really gave a toss about it in a sense. We didn’t see it as an important career move. I certainly didn’t - he probably did! So we rather took the mickey out of it. I used to enjoy doing it in a way, but only if I did it with him. We’d phone up and order costumes such as 17th century French court outfits and nobody would ever say - "What do you want to do that for?" They never questioned anything we did, which we found delightful. So it was always very funny, we always had an excellent time doing the programme."

Have you ever been starstruck?

"Invariably."

Have you ever embarrassed yourself on the show?

"Its an inevitable part of the process."

Has anyone in the audience ever said anything funny to you?

"No. But it’s worth pointing out that our hilarious ad-libs had been rehearsed twice in the course of the afternoon. So by the time you actually trotted it out, they became a bit glib and everyone has heard them before and of course all of the kids that were on the programme were desperate to be seen on TV so they really didn’t want us in the way. Me in particular - I was an obstruction to them - "Get out of the way fat boy, we want our mums and dads to see us on the screen."

What's the worst performance you've ever seen on the show?

"Something involving Pan's People or Legs & Co."

Who would you ban?

"No one."

What's your dream TOTP line up?

"Name any eight people or bands with no chance of ever being on there."

Any advice for someone who wants to be a presenter? 

"Take tranquilisers."

What was the 'breaking wind' incident all about then?

"Well it was nothing really, but the fact that you said it on TV, people were really worried about it. It was a record by Pete Wylie - one of the Wa Hees or the mighty Wah - was it a comeback? I said: "If this doesn’t get to number one I’m going to come and break wind in your kitchen." It’s not kind of a waspish thing, it doesn’t get into books or things or quotations. It’s not a fantastically clever thing to say - but having said it on TOTP. Producer Michael Hurl (who was a bit of an authoritarian figure I always felt - the idea that he was the man who generated a party atmosphere, I don’t remember that at all) was in Australia and apparently he was woken in the Australian equivalent of the Novotel in the middle of the night and alerted to the extraordinary danger to national security that had been engendered by me making this remark about breaking wind in people’s kitchens. I thought that this was hilariously funny - not the remark itself, but the consequences of it."

How did you introduce Big Country?

"I said: "This is the band that put the tree back into country" which is a variant on a well established old joke."

What about when you introduced Keith Harrison and Orville?

"I don't remember that at all... I think that was the kind of smart arse that I was.";

And George Cole and Dennis Waterman?

"They wouldn’t let me introduce Dennis Waterman - what was the record they made? I had some kind of hilarious introduction that they didn’t like and word got back to me that they were seriously displeased and steps would be taken if I didn’t amend my introduction and being nothing, if not a coward - I amended my introduction."

What was the best act you remember introducing then?

"Do you remember Curtis Heyston - One Hit Wonder - I don’t know what his hit was called. He was a kind of 18-year-old black lad from Detroit or something. It just suddenly hit me that this was the only thing that’s going to happen to him in all of his life. I hoped it was going to be the start of a string of hits. But he was never heard of again."

What was special about the era for you?

"Well nothing, really, except for the fact that we were asked to do TOTP. Actually we did do it more than anybody else at that time. It was a funny sort of experience because people would recognise you afterwards but only for about two days and then you would slip back into oblivion again. I like oblivion - that’s where I’ve spent most of my life. But then what did it do for me? Kid took the Capital Radio dollar - millions of dollars - and disappeared from Radio 1. So they obviously said "You can’t deal with him anymore". A bloke came up to me - I’d been to the stock car racing at Ipswich and this bloke came up to me and said slightly drunk, "Are you the bloke off the telly?". And I thought "No, I’m not really, I’m their dad!" the idea of being the 'bloke off the telly' was most unattractive. So I just said I didn’t want to do it anymore."