Its author, Sean Egan, is both a music journalist and fiction writer who has been a firm viewer of the programme, both intermittently in his childhood in the 1970s, and regularly since the 1980s. A fan of the late 1980s and early 1990s in particular, when David Liddiment’s changes in his role as executive producer modernised the programme’s production and narrative pace, Sean chose then to write the book not specifically to tie in with the fiftieth anniversary but, “having written about most of my favourite recording artists, it was logical to write about my favourite television programme.” Wary of beginning a piece of work without a commission, he realised that a selling point for something that would have limited appeal geographically (i.e. no US publication) was the upcoming half-centur