Top C's and Tiaras

Most of the programme was recorded on location at Wrotham Park, in Hertfordshire.{{Cite web |title=Top C's & Tiaras - BRIGHT THOUGHTS |url=https://www.bright-thoughts.co.uk/top-cs-tiaras.html}} Both the house and grounds were used for performances, and singing was accompanied by a live orchestra, under the musical direction of Harry Rabinowitz and Burt Rhodes. All performances were sung live, without the use of dubbing, and without an audience.{{Cite journal |last=Lewis |first=Peter |orig-date=April 24, 1984 |title=A singer prepared for all songs |url= |journal=The Times |issue=61813 |pages=9 |via=}} The director for the series was the television entertainment veteran, Bryan Izzard.{{Cite web |title=Bryan Izzard |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0412849/ |access-date=2023-05-19 |website=IMDb |language=en-US}} Other performers involved in the series included Laurence Dale, Della Jones, Harry Nicoll, Jill Washington, Jean Bailey, Hugh Hetherington, Neil Jenkins, Eirian James, David Fieldsend, Linda Ormiston, and Ramon Remedios. All episodes ran to 55 minutes in length.

Specials:

1. Top C's and Tiaras (10 April 1983)
2. Top C's and Tiaras II (31 October 1983)

Series 1:

1. "This Will be my Shining Hour" (29 April 1984)
2. "The Best of All Possible Worlds" (6 May 1984)
3. "One Night of Love" (13 May 1984)
4. "Dance Little Lady" (20 May 1984)
5. "Play to me Gypsy" (27 May 1984)
6. "When Vienna Sings" (3 June 1984)

File:Top C's and Tiaras 2.png

The programme was regarded within Channel 4 as being a popular success. The 1983-1984 Channel 4 Annual Report noted that the programme "won the channel's most enthusiastic response by phone and letter for its stylish rediscovery of the middle ground of operetta" Channel Four Television Company Limited Report and Accounts for the year ended 31st March 1984, page 6. It has been argued that Channel 4 "revived the music of Johann Strauss, Franz Lehar, Rudolph Friml, Sigmund Romberg and other light classical composers in Top Cs and Tiaras, with the help of a singer with a remarkable voice and great style, Julia Migenes-Johnson".{{Cite book |last=Bonner |first=Paul |title=Independent Television in Britain Volume 6: New Developments in Independent Television 1981-92: Channel Four, TV-am, Cable and Satellite. |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2002 |pages=130}}

Peter Lewis, writing in The Times, commented that "Top Cs and Tiaras pioneered a new, relaxed, unstuffy approach tonight music on television...no tiaras, not much evening dress, no old-fashioned pomp and hand-clasping - and no audience...they let their hair down together, not in a studio or theatre but a country house, singing around a piano to one another or wandering through the gilded rooms or the grounds. The artists help to choose their songs, miming is banished - it is shot as it is sung - and they give every appearance of really enjoying themselves". Sean Day-Lewis, writing in the Daily Telegraph, expressed the view that the programme was a "slickly assembled and more or less uncorrupted sequence of melodies from operetta and musical comedy", and that "it was an excellently finished video which would have won a high rating indeed on one of the senior channels".{{Cite journal |last=Day-Lewis |first=Sean |title=Television - The Language Loathers |journal=The Daily Telegraph |issue=39929 |pages=15}} The Listener magazine noted that "the programme conveys a sense of fun, and at least it resuscitates some sparkling operetta tunes"{{Cite journal |last=Morrison |first=Richard |date= |orig-date=April 26, 1984 |title=Music |journal=The Listener |pages=34}}

Former Channel 4 Chief Executive Jeremy Isaacs wrote about Top C's and Tiaras in his 1989 memoir, Storm Over 4. He quoted examples of the influx of appreciative telephone calls from viewers for the first edition, that were logged in the Duty Officer's report for April 10, 1983, and said that Top C's and Tiaras, "though made on a shoestring, went down a treat with the fans".{{Cite book |last=Isaacs |first=Jeremy |title=Storm over 4: a personal account |date=1989 |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |isbn=978-0-297-79538-4 |location=London |pages=172–173}}

An accompanying tie-in book, Top C's and Tiaras: Songs from the Channel 4 Series,{{Cite book |title=Top C's and Tiaras: Songs from the Channel 4 Series |publisher=International Music Publications |year=1984 |isbn=9780863591143 |location=London}} was published in 1984. A number of CDs based on the program, Treasures of Operetta, featuring Marilyn Hill Smith and Peter Morrison, were released by Chandos Records between 1985 and 1989.{{Cite web |title=Chandos Records |url=https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%208362}}

• {{IMDb title|19650192}}

• [https://www.bright-thoughts.co.uk/top-cs-tiaras.html The Bright Thoughts Company - Top C's and Tiaras]

Category:Channel 4 original programming

Category:1980s British television series

Category:1983 British television series debuts

Category:1984 British television series endings

Category:Musical comedy television shows