As if news that pop legend Rachel Stevens is playing Mighty Hoopla (twice!) this summer wasn’t massive enough – it turns out she’ll also be reuniting with the rest of S Club 7 in the autumn.
Yes, that’s right: they’re embarking on a full comeback tour.
The septet – Tina Barrett (doing her dance), Jon Lee (looking for romance), Paul Cattermole (getting down on the floor), Hannah Spearritt (screaming out for more), Bradley McIntosh (swinging), Rachel (doing her thing) and Jo O’Meara (in alleged possession of the flow) – announced on Monday’s The One Show that they’ll be celebrating the band’s 25th anniversary by hitting the road for at least 11 gigs this October.
It’s exciting, obviously (put Everybody Wants Ya on the setlist, I beg!), but it feels like it needs a little something extra to really make it pop… and I think I know just the thing.
See, reunions run the risk of feeling a bit run-of-the-mill now, with only the biggest ones truly standing out. The original Sugababes’ latest jaunt, for example, was an acclaimed delight (as was their previously shelved album); the Spice Girls filled stadiums without even having a full line-up, and both Steps and All Saints have been doing so well with new material that they feel like genuine mainstays again.
Even N-Dubz and the Pussycat Dolls managed to shift a hell of a lot of tickets for their arena tours – although the latter, devastatingly, never quite came to fruition.
So what can S Club 7 do to elevate themselves up a notch? Especially given that this isn’t their first renaissance (the whole gang previously brought it all back in 2014-2015, and various members have been teaming up for smaller-scale appearances for years).
That’s easy: they must reboot their oft-forgotten, gloriously ropey, thoroughly camp, scripted series Miami 7.
There was at least one musical performance per episode, and storylines ran the gamut from run-ins with an alligator, Tina getting lost in a laundry truck while dressed as an alien, and an encounter with the Bermuda Triangle that sent them back to the 1970s.
A moment in episode four in which Jo picks up an umbrella during a hurricane and is inexplicably blown away (via some truly spectacular CGI) was so daft, it’s recently been doing the rounds on Twitter.
The fun didn’t end after one season, either: specials Back to the 50s and Boyfriends & Birthdays followed later that same year; while a second run – renamed LA 7 – took them to the West Coast in 2000.
Watch it on YouTube now and it’s dated magnificently, by which I mean it’s so naff it’s wonderful.
It looks like it was filmed on a potato on a budget of £4.50 – and the S Clubbers’ acting? Oh, it’s so dodgy, it’s completely endearing.
Some of it is genuinely funny, too. I’m not embarrassed (well, I am a bit) to admit that when I re-watched the first episode the other day, I fully guffawed at a gag in which they all storm into their manager’s office saying they’re ‘angry and furious’, and the receptionist thinks that’s the name of the group. It’s called comedy, look it up!
Core themes include friendship, reaching for the stars and sticking together – in fact, they basically unionise within the first four minutes of the pilot, with Tina passionately declaring that ‘unity is power!’ Maybe the ‘S’ stood for socialism all along?
So this is it: I’m hereby calling for a full reboot (geared towards adults, obviously), to make this new reunion a properly unmissable event.
I’ll happily write it, too. In fact, if anyone from Team S Club is reading this, say the word and I’ll have a script on your desk by this time next week.
Perhaps it could follow the band as they do the 90s nostalgia festival circuit at various holiday resorts? Bognor Regis 7 doesn’t sound quite as glamorous as Miami 7, but it’d be just as fun.
Failing a full reboot, at the very least we need the old episodes released onto streaming platforms immediately.
And once that’s been sorted, I’ll need to have a serious discussion with someone about when S Club Juniors are returning, as well.
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