Filmed: November/December 2006?
Location: Covent Garden Hotel, London, England
Broadcast: Wednesday 27 December 2006, 21:00-22:30, ITV, UK
Release status: Unreleased
Duration: 1½ hours (including advert breaks)
Shown in: UK
Björn was interviewed very briefly for this new and rather disappointing ABBA programme which had been billed as follows:
"ABBA's hits are adored worldwide. The stage shows Chess and Mamma Mia! have been seen by thousands. But there's an important part of ABBA history that even die-hard fans know little about. Thirty years ago Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson wrote a mini pop-opera called The Girl with the Golden Hair - never recorded in its complete form. Here, it is re-created complete, starring ex-Atomic Kitten star Liz McClarnon. Director: Steve Cole; Producer: Chris Hunt."
Produced by Iambic Productions, the people behind The Winner Takes It All - The ABBA Story, Super Troupers: 30 Years of ABBA and ABBA's All Time Greatest Hits (a programme which had no original exclusive ABBA member footage), the programme had been sold to both ITV1 in the UK and Network Seven Australia. They drew heavily on footage and interviews obtained for their previous programmes. This interview with Björn was the only new contribution filmed.
The programme featured ex-Atomic Kitten singer Liz McClarnon performing songs from The Girl With The Golden Hair under the guidance of Mamma Mia! Musical Director Martin Koch. However, in spite of the promotional information everywhere, those parts were interspersed throughout the programme and they failed to include Get On The Carousel completely - merely referring to it as the fourth song of the mini-musical. They didn't even show ABBA performing it from ABBA - The Movie despite using footage from the film throughout the programme. Other footage used, apart from the PROMO videos, was from ABBA-dabba-dooo!! and, oddly, Making the National Commercials.
The angle used this time was that Agnetha's experiences in ABBA as "the girl with the golden hair" mirrored that experienced by the character in the mini-musical. The part of the narrator in the mini-musical was "played" by Richard O'Brien (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show fame) although as it was all shown out of context I doubt it made sense to Joe Public.
As usual, there were lots of musical faces passing comment and these included:
As the other two programmes by Iambic had been released on DVD, it was expcted that this would be too (with the whole mini-musical (as sung by Liz McLarnon) featured as bonus). A quote from producer Chris Hunt about this programme: "Our ABBA films have, over the years, been Iambic's most profitable, and we see no reason for this one to be an exception". However, it was not released on DVD after all.
Viewing figures in the UK were 3.8 - 3.9 million.
YouTube has blocked the video on copyright grounds.
Thanks to Marcus Tustin, Grant Whittingham and Ian Cole c/o ABBAMAIL (no longer online) and Alex Jones, Eduardo Souza, Linda Fälyngsson and Colin Hughes.