There was plenty of experience on the judges panel for show eleven of the series. Mickie Most and Clifford Davis both first appeared as judges in series one and George Elrick and Jack Parnell made their judging debuts in series three.

Clifford Davis is likely to have been a late replacement on the judging panel as Jimmy Henney was listed as a judge on this show in The Stage, but Clifford Davis’ quote on Jamie Adams’ performance confirms his appearance instead. During the show it was confirmed that Jimmy Henney was recovering in hospital having suffered a broken hip.

It was also during this show that the New Faces winners trophy was given it’s official name of ‘Busker.’ The trophy featured a figurine of the one-man band character that was converted into a star in the opening titles cartoon. The trophy appears to have been presented to the judges for the Series Four Gala Final and then to the winners of the All Winners Shows from Series Five onwards, so is a pretty rare award.

The name was chosen from suggestions from the viewers postal entries and the winning entry was from a Mrs Kathleen Fiest from Gravesend, Kent who was invited to the series Gala Final to receive her own ‘Busker’ trophy during the show.

The seven new acts that they cast their critical eyes over were;

• Gold (six-piece group) from London
• Peter Lloyd (impressionist) from London
• Koffee ‘N’ Kreme (vocal duo) from Portsmouth
• Jaime Adams (guitar / vocal comedian) from Much Wenlock
• Peter Lewis (vocalist) from Birmingham
• Oblio (four-piece group) from Blackpool
• Dubarry (magician) from Dublin, Irleand

The winner in the studio was vocalist Peter (Richmond) Lewis with an impressive score of 107 points, but he was pushed all the way by runners-up Koffee ‘n’ Kreme who finished just one point behind with 106 points. He performed If I Were A Rich Man from the musical Fiddler On The Roof.

Peter Lewis would be seen again on the second All Winners Show on Christmas Day and just one week before that Koffee ‘n’ Kreme would get also get a second chance on the first Near Misses show of the series.

Runners-up Koffee ‘n’ Kreme sang Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon, originally recorded in 1969 by Thelma Houston and in 1971 the Three Degrees featured in the movie The French Connection giving their rendition of Jimmy Webb’s song. Their name on the studio scoreboard listed them as Koffy ‘n’ Kreme.

Koffee was nineteen year-old Londoner Lance Ellington, the son of musician and agent Ray Ellington and Anita West, known to Crossroads fans as Dr. Hilary Maddox. Lance was a former member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Kreme was thirty one year-old Bette Hannah, originally from Glasgow, who had been singing with Christy Lee and her band, which performed mainly in Portsmouth. It was Christy, who had known Lance for some years, who suggested the two should get together as a duo. They thought that their appearance on New Faces would simply help to promote Christy Lee’s band.

In the twelve months following their debut TV appearance Koffee ‘n’ Kreme would appear on television with Marti Caine, Dickie Henderson, Frankie Vaughan and Bob Monkhouse and were invited by Johnny Mathis to provide the support on his UK tour, which culminated with a week at the London Palladium.

Eighteen year-old comedy vocalist Jaime Adams also scored an impressive 100 points with her song, Page Three, which scored a maximum forty points for content. Jack Parnell simply said, ‘I loved it’ and Clifford Davis said, ‘I can’t fault the song.’

Mickie Most said ‘an LP of this sort of stuff would be great’ and he was later proved right as the song featured on Jaime’s debut LP, Britain’s First Bionic Misfit. Jaime’s style was likened by many as a cross between Pam Ayres and Max Boyce as she performed her original and funny songs and this likeness was picked up on by George Elrick, who said Jaime was ‘like a singing Pam Ayres.’

Jaime was voted the No.1 Musical Entertainer of the Year on the Midland Variety Command Performance at Solihull’s New Cresta Theatre in 1977 and also made an appearance on the ATV Saturday morning show Tiswas. In 1978 Jaime played shows in Bahrain, where she had to turn down an extension to her contract because she had a previously arranged tour with The Wurzels.

On 2 November 1980 Jaime appeared in show two of the second series of the BBC’s Rising Stars talent spotting show, hosted by former New Faces judge Arthur Askey and Jenny Lee Wright and around the time the show aired Jaime was starting a week long support slot with Rolf Harris at the New Cresta Theatre, Solihull. In 1982 Jaime made her debut appearance on American Television.

In series five, any act scoring 100 points or more was invited back to appear on a Near Misses show later in the series and Jamie got her second chance on the same show as Koffee ‘n’ Kreme on 18 December 1976.

The group Gold opened the show with the song Everlasting Love which had previously been a hit for the group Love Affair.

Singer Tony Christiani and his pop group Gold were familiar old faces when they appeared on this heat of New Faces. Four years earlier they had been banned from Opportunity Knocks by Hughie Green in a voting row. New Faces producer Albert Stevenson was unaware of their disagreement with Hughie Green, but had he have known he wouldn’t have allowed them to appear on the show.

Back in 1972 the group, previously known as the New Pennies, were dropped by Thames TV after they found postal votes bearing false names and addresses and the group admitted canvassing for votes. When the scandal came to light their agent Monty Bond claimed, ‘There was no intent to deceive anyone and they broke no rules.’ 

Gold were also hit with another issue as they were informed they would have to change their name as another group was already using it, causing singer Tony to declare that they must have been the unluckiest pop group in the country.

The group Oblio had taken their name from the main character in American songwriter and musician Harry Nilsson’s sixth album The Point, released in late 1970. The group members were Tom Armstrong (drummer / vocalist), Dave ‘Wammy’ Walmsley (guitar), Jim Hopwood and Colin.

It’s certain Oblio appeared as the picture proves it, however, they weren’t listed as being on the show in TV magazines and instead a group called Accrington Stanley were listed, which was one of the former bands of Oblio guitarist Dave ‘Wammy’ Walmsley.

The group was unusually lead by their drummer Tom Armstrong, who also took lead vocal duties. Guitarist Dave ‘Wammy’ Walmsley recalls on his website that they chose to perform a fairly obscure Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina song, House at Pooh Corner, first recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1970. They were however, quite bizarrely, surrounded by ten cardboard cut outs of Mickey Mouse but at least their drumskin featured Winnie The Pooh and they also placed a large stuffed Pooh Bear at the back of the stage.

Dublin illusionist Du Barry was a man of mystery and paranormal powers. The magician, conjuror and hypnotist was billed as Ireland’s answer to Uri Geller. He performed a card trick while standing on the steps between the rows of audience seating and produced a vanishing and torn card from the middle of a grapefruit before matching the previously torn corner to the card. Had he managed to ‘magic’ up just one more point he would have returned for a second appearance, but after the judges had scored his act he remained on an agonisingly close 99 points.

After his appearance he was jetting off to San Francisco to perform and had previously written a book on positive thinking and had even made a record on how to give up smoking.

Du Barry had given demonstrations of hypnotism and mindreading the world over and had received first class revues from leading critics. Did he really possess an extraordinary psychic ability which enabled him to read a person’s very thoughts? He often demonstrated this remarkable power on stage and actually told people what they were thinking.

Du Barry claimed to be able to hypnotise faster than anyone else. His stage performance set about proving this the results were utterly incredible, boggling the minds of the audience, who were captivated by the antics of the spellbound volunteers on stage. To lighten the building tension Du Barry would quickly change the mood and the audience is reduced to laughter.

Semi-professional impressionist Peter Lloyd delivered a varied routine that ran through a number of television shows that featured John Noakes (Blue Peter), Top Cat, Benny, Choo-Choo and Brain (Top Cat), Benny (Crossroads), Ian Paisley, Vicks Sinex Nasal Spray advert, Cliff Richard.

The judges were less than impressed with the impressionist and they awarded him the lowest score of the show by some margin, with Clifford Davis scoring a low four points for Entertainment Value.

George Elrick thought that one day Peter’s boat would come in, he just hoped he wasn’t at the airport when it did.

Position	Act	Presentation	Content	Entertainment Value	Total
1	Peter Lewis	35	33	39	107
2	Koffy ‘n’ Kreme	37	30	39	106
3	Jaime Adams	29	40	31	100
4	Du Barry	34	34	31	99
5	Gold	32	31	34	97
6	Oblio	30	32	32	94
7	Peter Lloyd	25	23	21	69

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