The setting for the show was the Stage One complex next to the Granada Television studios in Manchester which had just been converted from a warehouse into a studio complex. After an opening of cast, both present and past (including Ivan Beavis and Cheryl Murray) getting out of limousines and walking past the press cameras while fireworks exploded in the rain-filled sky overhead, the action cut to the incongruous site of dancers on the outdoor set to the sound of Barry Manilow’s Swing Street and then transferred inside where Cilla Black was introduced as the host on a mock-up of the street with the present cast sat to one side. Black introduced the programme as a celebration of the “most popular programme on British television” and promised faces that everyone would remember and surprise