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TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Sub-tilted The Story of Popular Music, this seventeen-hour long trek through the history of popular music was directed by recent pop convert Tony Palmer, allegedly after a suggestion by John Lennon.


Starting the story in Africa and ending with stadium rock of the early seventies Palmer filmed an astonishing amount of artists, commentators and spectators. Palmer had previously attempted a look at the pop scene in 1968 with the sometimes unintentionally comical All My Loving, and some of the footage from this was recycled for All You Need Is Love.


Having made All My Loving and How It Is for the BBC it was to the Beeb that he originally approached with the idea, thinking ITV wouldn’t be interested, but they wanted editorial control. Palmer then tried to persuade the record industry to finance it with EMI and PolyGram putting up a million pounds each. PolyGram's Philips label released a tie-in soundtrack album, even including The Beatles title song.


Despite the apparent critical success he went back to his first love, opera afterwards.




ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE


LWT / Theatre Projects

12th February 1977 to 28th May 1977