In When Pop Ruled My Life: The Fans’ Story (BBC4) journalist Kate Mossman examines the behaviour of the people besotted with popstars (so nearly all of us, at some stage of our lives). From the Beatles to 1D, and everyone in between. With a nice range in punditry – no actual Beatles, sadly, but their former fan-club secretary Freda represents them, along with Beatlemaniac Lillian.
From the 70s onwards, though, everyone plays along – both worshippers and worshippees. So welcome Rollermaniac Heather and the object of her teenage desire, Les McKeown. Also Siouxsie Sioux, Bruce Dickinson, Jazzie B and Nicky Wire, along with a number of zealots, impersonators, groupies, MPs (Alan Johnson, who was a Beatlemaniac, then a mod). Plus a smattering of writers, biographers and even fan historians. (No, really – he’s called Fred Vermorel.)
And they’ve got some pretty interesting things to say, too, about why they/we do it, about the nature of fandom, about belonging and tribalism. And about the difference between female fans and male ones: basically, boys collect and catalogue; girls scream and wee. I had no idea about the weeing. Shea stadium must have been half-full of urine after that famous Beatles concert in 1965 when no one could hear a thing because of all the screaming. Do they still wee, I wonder – Directioners, say? I’d ask them on the internet but I’m a bit scared to.
The nicest stuff in the programme is from Mossman herself, about being a Queen fan. Queen! Really? I didn’t know they had that kind of following. Anyway, Kate was a Queen fan, specifically a Roger Taylor fan – she had a teenage Taylor diary, and here gamely read bits out. “If this is not love, will you please tell me what it is?”
She shows the flowchart she made about the possible outcomes of meeting him. Then remembers the time she did. Not exactly a chance meeting: she followed him into a cinema in Cornwall, after making her parents go there on holiday so she could be near him. I think that’s more like stalking, Kate.
Did she ask Taylor to take part in the show? He probably called the police.
