Jim Higgins retweetledi
The John Players Tops of the Town (JPTOTT) started in Waterford in 1962. A local variety competition started built on the simple but irresistible idea to get ordinary workers on stage who mightnt ever have done singing or drama.
Two years later, Niall O'Flynn, public relations manager for John Player tobacco and cigarettes in Ireland, saw the potential as sponsors, and the cancer stick peddlers transformed it into a nationwide phenomenon. Soon it was operating across eighteen regional competition hubs across Ireland. Companies, businesses, and community groups really threw themselves into.
Its probably hard for younger generations to imagine that literally bosses let employees spend months in rehearsal to put together polished 55-minute variety shows on company time. Although I know a lot of performers used their personal time there was a lot of it during work hours. These shows covered everything from song and dance to comedy sketches and full-scale dramatic productions.
At its peak, JPTOTT was essentially the GAA of amateur performance in Ireland. The national finals drew together the great names of Irish industry and commerce in the most unlikely of circumstances. Waterford Glass faced off against Limerick Insurance. Aer Lingus took on Carrigaline Pottery. Packard Electric squared up to Telecom Éireann.
RTÉ televised the whole spectacle and Marty Whelan took over hosting duties in 1987, becoming as synonymous with the show as the brand of carcinogenic coffin nails in the title. Behind every group that made it to the national stage were armies of writers, costume-makers, set-builders, lighting rigs, and committee members running fundraisers. Oh and abvioulsly all of JPTOTT was unpaid and all of it fuelled by community pride.
On a personal note as a queer who cant stand eurovision or musicals, younger me bizarrely found meself absolutely enthralled watching it. Something about the fact it was ordinary Irish people, dancing their arses off, singing their hearts out. Amateurs they might have been but they were always of a high standard and sincerely trying.
The beginning of the end came quietly in the early 1990s, as larger corporations quietly reconsidered the resources they were committing, and began stepping back. The gap they left was filled by smaller community groups, which in many ways returned the competition to its roots, but the commercial engine that had driven it for thirty years was winding down.
The final blow came from the law itself. A ban on cigarette advertising in 1997 severed John Player's sponsorship. The last televised final was won by Moate. Ironically I missed it as the DTM was stuck in a moat at the Siege of Carrigafoyle Castle due to a leak of asymmetric tachyons.
Across its thirty-five years, hundreds of thousands of people performed, built sets, sewed semi revealing costumes, and also sat in darkened theatres watching their neighbours be stars for the night. Theres something so bleedin Irish about JPTOTT, such a shame its been almost forgotten.
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