Rock Follies

Rock Follies
Genre	Musical drama
Written by	Howard Schuman
Directed by	Brian Farnham Jon Scoffield
Starring	Charlotte Cornwell Julie Covington Rula Lenska
Theme music composer	Andy Mackay
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producer(s)	Verity Lambert
Producer(s)	Andrew Brown
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Release
Original network	ITV
Picture format	PAL (576i)
Audio format	Mono
Original release	24 February – 30 March 1976
Chronology
Followed by	Rock Follies of '77 (1977)

Rock Follies of '77
Genre	Musical drama
Written by	Howard Schuman
Directed by	Brian Farnham Bill Hayes
Starring	Charlotte Cornwell Julie Covington Rula Lenska
Theme music composer	Andy Mackay
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producer(s)	Verity Lambert
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Release
Original network	ITV
Picture format	PAL (576i)
Original release	4 May – 6 December 1977
Chronology
Preceded by	Rock Follies (1976)

Rock Follies, and its sequel, Rock Follies of '77, is a musical drama shown on British television in the 1970s. The storyline followed the ups and downs of a fictional female rock band called the "Little Ladies" as they struggled for recognition and success. The series starred Rula Lenska, Charlotte Cornwell and Julie Covington as the Little Ladies, with support from Emlyn Price, Beth Porter, Sue Jones-Davies, Bob Hoskins, Stephen Moore, Derek Thompson, Denis Lawson and Little Nell among others. The series was made with a very low budget for Thames Television, with a style inspired by fringe theatre.

The series was a success, winning three BAFTA Awards and the soundtrack album reaching No.1 in the UK Charts.

The fictional band was made up on-screen of talented session musicians as well as the three lead actresses who proved they could sing, and the spin-off album of music from the series entered the UK charts at number one (a common occurrence now, but exceptionally rare at that time). The songs were written by Andy Mackay, who was a founding member of Roxy Music. Lyrics and screenplay were written by Howard Schuman.

The second series, Rock Follies of '77, was a continuation of the first, but industrial action during May of that year at ITV, the commercial channel that aired the show, caused the last few episodes to be postponed until November. The second series pushed the style further in an experimental direction: where the first series had a lot of dialogue and "offstage" scenes, the second focused more on the music and fantasy sequences, with additional songs and musical interludes used to move the plot forward rather than relying on dialogue as the first had done. More sophisticated video effects were also used.

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Wikipedia