The Glamour Girls

The Glamour Girls rose from the ashes of another ITV show, the drama serial Send in the Girls. June Wyndham Davies, the producer of the latter show, commissioned David Nobbs to pen the first episode introducing the characters and setting. When this episode was subsequently shunted to the end of the series, Nobbs was understandably irked. Send in the Girls was not recommissioned, and so the writer expected to hear no more about the project.

Much to his surprise however, Granada producer John G. Temple suggested that Nobbs should write a sitcom on the same theme, which he then did. A pilot episode was made, directed by Gordon Fleming but did not impress the Granada executives and no series was commissioned. The concept once more appeared to be dead and buried.

This situation changed though, when Granada executive David Plowright invited Nobbs for a meeting in Manchester. The writer explained that the pilot episode had been doomed due to the miscasting of lead actors, unsuitability of the director and incompetence of the warm-up man. The end result of the meeting was that Plowright made a firm commitment to make the series.

James Warrior was the only cast member to remain from the pilot episode and Brigit Forsyth and Sally Yates were brought in as the new leads. Nobbs also realised that the manager of the agency must be a man and so Duggie Brown replaced Una Maclean in the role. The change was complete with Malcolm Taylor being installed as director.

The Glamour Girls then ran for two series and, despite being scheduled against Top of the Pops, performed creditably in the ratings. It never set the world on fire however, and after the second series the show ended, this time for good.