ABSTRACT
Rock Follies and its sequel Rock Follies Of '77 are rare items indeed: British television drama series that are set in, and take explicitly as their main subject matter, the world of rock music. Simon Frith offers some possible reasons why television might have generally struggled to bring music, and especially rock and pop music, to the centre of attention in any televisual format. The opening episodes of Rock Follies juxtapose an energetic rendition of 'Blueberry Hill' with the enervated, old-time stage musical Broadway Annie. In author's history of British television drama, Lez Cooke notes an interesting connection between Rock Follies and Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven. Given the pervasiveness of rock and pop music in British culture, the paucity of rock-themed television dramas throughout that period surely merits some consideration. Rock Follies underlines the validity of Mundy's point in both its innovative accomplishments and in the fact that there are very few British television dramas quite like it.
