On Television

Soap Opera Queen

Kirsty's music was featured in British soap Emmerdale, playing in the background at Chris & Zoe Tait's drinks party on 27 July 2000. Meantime, British soap Eastenders has featured Don't come the cowboy, In these shoes? and Treachery playing on the pub jukebox in its time so there's a Kirsty fan in there for sure. June Brown ("Dot Cotton") is of course a close friend of Jean, Kirsty's mother. Medical soap/drama Holby City featured a character singing along to an extended play of They don't know on 26 November 2002 (CR). Actress Liza Tarbuck sang both Chip Shop and A new England on the BBC comedy Linda Green on 5 November 2002 (Fae/Kendal). Coronation Street actress Wendi Peters impersonated Kirsty and sang Days on a celebrity edition of Stars in their Eyes in 2004!

In these shoes?

We've also had the Shoes intro used in the trailer for poor British sitcom Kiss me Kate (though not in the show itself), Não Esperando was used very effectively in the excellent drama series Fat Friends and we even had a pumped up appearance for Shoes in G String Divas, a "documentary" exploring the world of Philadelphia lap dancers, with appropriate stage show of course. Actually Shoes was in the illustrious company of Tito Puente, Africando, Poncho Sanchez, Mongo Santamaria, Natalie Ferni and Los Fabulosos Cadillacs in a strange "Latin" stripfest. What's more, it was also used (and properly credited for once) in a program about an American brothel called Moonlite Bunny Ranch, director Patty Kaplan. (Source: Viveka)

Zeitgeist sitcom Sex & The City has also featured the beginning portion of In These Shoes, approximately through the end of the first verse, as the various characters got ready for dates (or maybe just going out). Shoes popped up as background music in the British coverage of World Cup 2002 in Japan & Korea, and was also used as the theme music for the BBC1 series Any time now about three friends in Dublin (CR). The series was first shown on Irish RTE (Catherine B).

Finally, the song was used as the main titles in a debut comedy series for Catherine Tait in early 2004 (CR), as the signature tune to Five's roundup of Britain's Favourite Comedians in 2004 (BK), and in the US version of VH1's weekly instant nostalgia comedy series Best Week Ever an instrumental snippet is played as the intro to the "Sizzler" segment each week. (Rich)

Other appearances

The intro to Us Amazonians has appeared twice on Channel 4 show Supernanny. CH4 love Kirsty! Source: BK

Ecological Aftermath

The BBC documentary series Horizon ran an episode called "Don't go near the water" which featured Kirsty's garden and ecological views. Here are some stills from the programme...

The programme was part of the BBC series "Byline" and was broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesday 4 June 1991, time 22.20 - 23.00.

The series featured well-known people discussing a particular issue that they themselves cared about. Kirsty chose water pollution and the programme shows Kirsty in various locations in the UK investigating the causes & effects of pollution in Britain's waterways. The programme also demonstrated how water can be recycled using reed beds and showed the installation of a reed bed recycling system in Kirsty's back garden. At select moments during the programme Kirsty pops up to sing Don't go near the water and Maybe it's imaginary.

At the time of broadcast, Electric Landlady & Walking Down Madison were out so the programme was no doubt useful publicity for Kirsty as well as containing an important environmental message! Source: TH

A Girl's Best Friend

Kirsty has an entry in the Internet Movie Database which details her TV themes and appearances with French & Saunders... she appeared in six episodes, usually interrupted (unnecessarily) by Simon Brint & Rowland Rivron.

Her themes were used for British dramas Dream Stuffing, Moving Story and Picking up the Pieces, which was instrumental. According to Matthew Westwood, "Kirsty had remixed Please Go To Sleep for me for a play I did in 92, and we'd been mates ever since then. From 94 - 96 I was doing a show for Granada that only ever got to pilot stage that had it gone to a series, Kirsty would have done the music for. It was produced by the same guy who did Picking Up The Pieces which is how Kirsty got to do the music for that. She was chuffed - it paid for a new bathroom! "

Dream Stuffing ran on Channel 4 on Friday nights between 6 January and 9 March, 1984.
Sitcom. Exploits of two young girls living in the East End of London, starring Rachael Weaver, Amanda Symonds, Ray Burdis, Frank Lee and Caroline Quentin. Source: CV.

Gathering Round the Old Joanna

BBC2's excellent Later series compered by Kirsty's long time friend Jools Holland featured Kirsty on four occasions:

19 November 1992 (Series 1 show 7) Soho Square and Angel
Hootenanny 1994 Miss Otis regrets, Shane MacGowan sang Nancy Whiskey
Hootenanny 1999 - songs unknown (anyone out there?)
15 April 2000 (Series 15 show 1) In these shoes? and England 2 Colombia 0

Just before she died, Kirsty appeared in a Channel 4 special on Otis Lee Crenshaw, the alter ego of American comedian Rich Hall. According to Rich, "they thought Otis was the next Graham Norton. They couldn't have been more wrong. To make matters worse, Kirsty MacColl was in it, and she had just died. That alone made it untransmittable."

The Ghosts of Oxford Street

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In 1991 Kirsty appeared alongside Shane MacGowan in a TV production of Ghosts of Oxford Street in the quise of Kitty Fisher - a victim to cosmetic poisoning in the 18th Century. Kitty was famous for her wit and beauty, and after a night in her arms she found the Duke of York had only 50 pounds, and was so outraged she ate the money before him - the camera pans down to Shane in the street as the music for Fairytale of New York starts. Kirsty goes to the window and sings most of this song from that view point, until the line "I could have been someone", where she is now outside the house standing next to Shane, the last scene is of both of them waltzing together outside the front door. Source: TH/AS2

Miscellaneous Sightings

Bizarrely, "a guy working down the chip shop who swore he was - guess who?" featured as the "mystery guest" on A Question of Sport - a BBC sports quiz programme. They have to guess (while blindfolded) the identity of a mystery guest. Additionally, an Elvis impersonator serving in a chip shop was used in a trailer for the series of shows commemorating the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death (we did promise STRANGE facts). Source: Phil, Feb 2002/Aug 2002

Of course, as detailed in the Gigs section, Kirsty appeared on TV quite a lot in 2000 - Never Mind the Buzzcocks, BBC Music Live, Open House, ...

Finally, here's a shot of Kirsty on stage with the Happy Mondays on Top of the Pops in 1989:

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