The sad news of Flick Colby's death at the weekend triggered instant nostalgia for a more innocent age. What could be more wholesome than her dance troupe, Pan's People, floating and flitting expressively in the Top of the Pops studio? They formed in 1966 and initially stuck to cheeky or ethereal routines; there were short skirts and impish muggings to camera on one hand or hippy wigs and a surfeit of wafting on the other. Their often literal interpretations of song lyrics and their jaunty girlishness is what most will associate with them.
It's Legs and Co and Arlene Phillips's Hot Gossip, the troupes who came after them, who are remembered for their risque jiggling. But Pan's People courted their fair share of controversy too. Mary Whitehouse slated them when they brought their mini skirts and lovely legs to the Jim'll Fix It studio, corrupting the nation's children. It was the dads she should have been worried about. In one of their later Top of the Pops appearances, they expressed themselves enthusiastically to Buddy Miles' 69 Freedom Special, in almost nothing save for a sprinkling of strategic glitter. Although hardly on the same level as Christina Aguilera or Rihanna's modern day crotch-pumping, air-humping antics, those old-fashioned women in their cutesy outfits could be dangerously sexy, too.
