Sharp and lingering taste of a girls’ shtick of rock
The Real Rock Follies Weekend Dancer
NW1 Books, £9.99 Old Dog Books, £8.99 Reviewed by Ben Weich
ANYONE WHO watched TV in the 1970s is likely to recall Rock Follies, the much-acclaimed musical drama about the “Little Ladies” girl band. Now, in The Real Rock Follies, Annabel Leventon reveals a shocking real-life parallel — the true story of Britain’s first ground-breaking, all-female band, “Rock Bottom”.
Actress and occasional musician Leventon, along with two friends, Gaye Brown and Diane Langton, formed the band in 1971.
The trio, worn down by the day-today reality of life as jobbing actresses, figured it would be easier to create a story big enough to get on TV, rather than keep on praying they’d be cast in something rewarding.
Rock Bottom quickly attracted attention and within a short time the girls were living “the lifestyle”. By 1974, the lives of Leventon, Brown and Langton were an endless blur of concerts and photo-shoots but, just as they were poised to hit the big time with their own television show, the plug was pulled and all three were replaced, by actresses Rula Lenska, Charlotte Cornwell and Julie Covington.
Often very funny — and clever — Leventon’s memoir moves entertainingly from the glamour of mid-1970s rock ’n’ roll into its darker side, and from there to a courtroom. Inevitably, the tone changes from the recollections of the fun days of sequins and fishnets to the stress of legal proceedings, but Leventon’s humour and candour keep things on course.
In this convincing account, she conveys an atmosphere of Spice Girls-like joie de vivre and shows just how original Rock Bottom were. The Real Rock Follies offers a compelling reprise of the ’70s music scene — along with its cruel and grubby machinations.
Moving the nostalgia along a decade, Talcott Levy’s novel, Weekend Dancer, follows the exploits of an unnamed Jewish mod in 1980s London.
The book is like a trip in a timemachine, with Levy as our guide around the capital — equally enlightening for both those who weren’t there and those who were but have forgotten.
There are the familiar story-lines — class divide, youth culture, romance — but, as much as any of these, Weekend Dancer is about Jewish identity.
It is a fast-moving tale in which religion and culture impact on all facets of our anonymous hero’s’s woes — from his attempts to tame his “rogue darkbrown curls” to his troubled home life.
Levy has written a vivid and colourful narrative conveying the stresses and strains not only of being a teenager but especially of being a Jewish teenager.
Ben Weich is a JC reporter