A LOOK BACK AT HOW A POP GROUP SPARKED A ‘GIRL POWER’ REVOLUTION
MARKING 25 years since Wannabe catapulted The Spice Girls onto the world’s stage, this series charts the complete story – warts and all – of their rise to superstardom.
Arriving at a time when British culture was incredibly blokey – with laddish humour and Britpop at the forefront – this all-female band stirred up a girl power movement.
Scary, Sporty, Ginger, Posh and Baby Spice didn’t just have charttopping success, they defined the culture at the time, becoming an international phenomenon.
This nostalgic series, with plenty of archive footage, interviews and celeb talking heads, begins at a
Channel 4, 9pm
hotel in London in 1994 where Geri Halliwell and Victoria Adams were auditioning for the movie Tank Girl.
They met again three months later at a different audition – an open casting for girls aged 18-23 who could sing, dance and were ambitious and dedicated.
It was here that talent manager Chris Herbert put Geri, Victoria, Melanie Brown and Melanie Chisholm together.
Singer Lianne Morgan was a feature of the original line-up but
was later replaced with stage school student Emma Bunton.
They were to be the girls’ version of Take That – but “a bit more street”.
What followed, as we all know, was unprecedented success as the girls became the best-selling girl group of all time by 1997, influencing a generation in the process.
There were highs and lows as they were later slammed for selling out to endless marketing, then famously ditched their manager Simon Fuller.
But their belief in themselves was their super power and Spice Mania was not to be stopped.