The first All Winners’ Show of the series featured the top acts of the previous six weeks, plus a viewer’s winner from series four, all appearing for a second time to decide who went forward to the series Gala Final.

Muriel Young, the first woman on the panel for a long, long time made a second appearance and was joined by fellow judges Lionel Blair, Shaw Taylor and Jack Parnell.

An industrial dispute stopped the regular Tuesday recording of the show with the recording moved to Wednesday instead. The panel and performers stayed overnight in Birmingham so they would be available for an additional day to complete the recording. The staff at ATV Birmingham had objected to the plans to record the show’s Christmas Special at ATV’s Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire, however, the row was quickly resolved when the Christmas recording location was reverted back to Birmingham.

The seven acts, in order of appearance, looking for a Gala Final place were;

• Greengage (five-piece group) from Manchester- show 4.30
• Lee Wilson (vocalist / comedian) from Birmingham – show 5.2
• Flair (vocal / guitar trio) from London – show 5.3
• Redwood (four-piece group) from Jersey – show 5.4
• Mike ‘Stand’ Douglas (comedian) from Liverpool – show 5.6
• Paul John Forrest (guitar / vocal) from Liverpool – show 5.5
• Roy Walker (comedian) from Newcastle – show 5.7

The winner, and booking a place in the series Gala Final, was the comedian Mike ‘Stand’ Douglas. Mike, however, would have to wait a full six months, until the 2 April 1977, and a further 20 shows before he could make his Gala Final appearance.

Back for another shot at the final was, comedian Roy Walker, the high scoring winner from the previous week. His performance was based around his amusing stories of the week since his win, which he presented in his calm, softly spoken and almost shy delivery.

Lionel Blair commented on how much Roy looked like a fellow contestant, singer Lee Wilson, saying ‘they look like brothers,’ and he liked Roy’s nice and gentle delivery.

Muriel Young liked the ‘ludicrous stories’ calling them ‘daft’, ‘idiotic’ and ‘lovely’ and Shaw Taylor said he would have liked Roy to ‘rather than simply tell jokes to do a commentary on life, generally,’ and he thought if he did that ‘he could be absolutely hysterical.’

Jack Parnell was the final judge to give his view on Roy’s act and he said that he loved ‘the easy going style,’ adding he was ‘a complete opposite to Mike [‘Stand’ Douglas] and just as good in his own way.’

With, Simone, the winner of the first show of the series given an immediate place in the Gala Final there was a vacant spot on the show so an act from series four returned to join the All Winners Show line-up.

Manchester group Greengage didn’t have to wait anywhere near as long for their second chance. Having won the viewers panel vote on show thirty of series four they had to wait just over three months for their next chance to impress the judges, but with stiff competition and no viewers vote this time around it would be their final New Faces appearance.

Jersey group Redwood scored an impressive 348 points and received some encouraging comments from the judges about the sound they were making. Muriel Young thought they were a quality act and they produced ‘a most beautiful sound.’ Shaw Taylor agreed saying that their ‘sound was magnificent.’ Lionel Blair commented that the sound was ‘quality’ and added ‘it’s class.’ Bandleader Jack Parnell also agreed with the other judges describing the act as having ‘a very, very good sound.’

Archive: A copy is held by the BFI – Work – 570113