Original Bucks Fizz band member Jay Aston had recently left the group in the middle of promotions for their single "You and Your Heart So Blue", which had peaked at No.43 and had dropped to No.56 when this episode aired.
The decision for them to perform the track on Wogan meant that replacement member Shelley Preston was miming to Aston's voice. Although it was too late for the group to turn the song's fortunes around, this appearance did appear to slow down the descent somewhat - the following week it had dropped only a single place, down to No.57.
The decision for them to perform the track on Wogan meant that replacement member Shelley Preston was miming to Aston's voice. Although it was too late for the group to turn the song's fortunes around, this appearance did appear to slow down the descent somewhat - the following week it had dropped only a single place, down to No.57.
Bucks Fizz derided their own performance on this edition, embarrassed by the flop single, and relieved when their next track (performed on Episode #6.64 (1986) ) hit the Top 10 UK Singles. Journalist Neil Bonner wrote in the Reading Evening Post (9th September 1986):
"When the group appeared on Wogan, the idea was to show the world that even a terrible coach crash and a mud-slinging court case couldn't stop the bucks from fizzing. Yet it was an appearance that remains their greatest embarrassment. Only now, with one big hit record behind them - the aptly-title (sic) A New Beginning - and their latest still climbing the charts, can the group allow themselves to smile about their re-emergence.
"We looked so awful on Wogan," says Mike. "We just didn't look right at all. It was as though we'd just been thrown together. I think we came back too soon. We should have stayed away for a long, long time. I video all our TV appearances for my mum. But I've wiped that one off." That first comeback record flopped and as the bitterness that surrounded Jay Aston's departure continued, Bucks Fizz seemed to have fizzled out. Earlier this summer, however, New Beginning eventually gave the group just that a new start in a business that's tough going even without road accidents and court cases. If that record had not put them back on top, Bucks Fizz would almost certainly have fallen apart. "I for one would have quit," says Mike, the most badly hurt of all the members in that coach crash in Newcastle in December 1984. "After all the success we'd had over the years, all the tours and the hit records, I don't think I could face the thought of attempting endless comebacks, desperately trying to win back our popularity. If New Beginning had flopped, I'd have said the interest in us just wasn't there any more and I would have got out. So too would Bobby and Cheryl ... gone off and done our own things. I'm not sure what I would have done but it would have been something in the music business. Whatever happened it couldn't possibly have been any worse than being with a group that was on the slide."
[...] Shelley Preston, the unknown 21-year-old who beat 1,000 other hopefuls to step into Jay's shoes, says that the group's problems are well and truly behind them now. "Although Jay was very popular with the fans, they seem to have accepted me now and I'm enjoying every minute of it," she says. "Unlike the others, I even enjoyed that Wogan programme because it was my first big TV show, so it will always be rather special to me.""
"When the group appeared on Wogan, the idea was to show the world that even a terrible coach crash and a mud-slinging court case couldn't stop the bucks from fizzing. Yet it was an appearance that remains their greatest embarrassment. Only now, with one big hit record behind them - the aptly-title (sic) A New Beginning - and their latest still climbing the charts, can the group allow themselves to smile about their re-emergence.
"We looked so awful on Wogan," says Mike. "We just didn't look right at all. It was as though we'd just been thrown together. I think we came back too soon. We should have stayed away for a long, long time. I video all our TV appearances for my mum. But I've wiped that one off." That first comeback record flopped and as the bitterness that surrounded Jay Aston's departure continued, Bucks Fizz seemed to have fizzled out. Earlier this summer, however, New Beginning eventually gave the group just that a new start in a business that's tough going even without road accidents and court cases. If that record had not put them back on top, Bucks Fizz would almost certainly have fallen apart. "I for one would have quit," says Mike, the most badly hurt of all the members in that coach crash in Newcastle in December 1984. "After all the success we'd had over the years, all the tours and the hit records, I don't think I could face the thought of attempting endless comebacks, desperately trying to win back our popularity. If New Beginning had flopped, I'd have said the interest in us just wasn't there any more and I would have got out. So too would Bobby and Cheryl ... gone off and done our own things. I'm not sure what I would have done but it would have been something in the music business. Whatever happened it couldn't possibly have been any worse than being with a group that was on the slide."
[...] Shelley Preston, the unknown 21-year-old who beat 1,000 other hopefuls to step into Jay's shoes, says that the group's problems are well and truly behind them now. "Although Jay was very popular with the fans, they seem to have accepted me now and I'm enjoying every minute of it," she says. "Unlike the others, I even enjoyed that Wogan programme because it was my first big TV show, so it will always be rather special to me.""