3rd December

1964: It's strange how much, say, Stones survives from the 60s while all Beatles footage was long thought replaceable. This was one of the occasions that while the BBC had them, even if pre-recorded not in front of an audience one afternoon (of six visits they only braved a studio audience once), they thought they'd get two songs out of them, here I Feel Fine and She's A Woman.

1970: Bassist John Dalton seems to be on his way there naturally but it's The Kinks' keyboard player who gets to dress up as an example of the song. Let's hope Ray didn't buy that shirt for the occasion.

1981: "We're going to begin in a party mood" Jensen avers, only it takes Bad Manners a while and presumably the costume department was safely locked up. Buster lifts the soloing Jeff Lynne-alike saxophonist up onto his shoulders and the director does everything he can to not so him aloft even though we see dancers reacting. What's with the ballroom dancers by the screen?

1987: Only four studio appearances solo by Paul McCartney, this one featuring a violin solo and a matey look by a scarf-touting, pre-Four Seasons Nigel Kennedy.

1992: Not to suggest Dina Carroll thought all this hitmaking came easy to her, but not only does she spend the whole performance sitting down but there's a fresh clean sheet over the chair. Because people liked that sort of thing in 1992, a Boney M Megamix charted and the current iteration, featuring only lead vocalist Liz Mitchell, gamely danced to it. We've all seen Bobby Farrell; Curt De Daran is no Bobby Farrell.

1999: Run for your lives, it's Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer! TOTP installed some new windows for his visit. Surely candles would have been better served on the set rather than on the screen. Yes, that'll be Myleene Klass at 2:59. At the other end of the scale, Lolly differentiated herself from her phalanx of dancers only by a bodywarmer.