1st March

1973: Jellyfish, ladybirds and some sort of pupae. The obvious backdrop for prime T Rex. Micky Finn's thinking ambitiously with his trousers.

1979: Violinski was an actual thing that happened, but there's very much an aura of quickly drafted in session mates about this performance, so awkward does everyone but the preening Mik Kaminski look. How different from the sophisticated power-playing to camera of Thin Lizzy.

1984: It's a Rhythm Pals show! Pops was always awkward around street-derived scenes and that audience can't fail to be impressed by Break Machine's bodypopping and back spinning like a luminous Jeffrey Daniel. A very different form of music and movement was on show elsewhere that week. Alexei Sayle, an appropriate prop and a quarter of a idea at best to get him through three and a half minutes of single take television. Are those meant to be two dancers at the back of the stage?

1990: "Great young groovers" Electribe 101 might have been faced with the same issues as every other dance act on Pops around this time of transferring a frankly static live act to prime-time telly, but that's betting without the magnetically bendy presence of Billie Ray Martin. Watch at 2:16 when so preoccupied is she with getting in all different types of move in as short a space of time as possible she plain forgets to mime.

2002: Now she's the housewives' favourite it's easy to forget Alesha Dixon was not so long ago merely a shouty MC off the back of UK garage. Mis-Teeq's matching Adidas tracksuits were the thing back then. In 1987. And you can't trust their dancers to turn up anything like on time.