LIVING today announces a one-off special Birth of the Spice Girls for its December schedule, coinciding with the Spice Girls’ December comeback tour. This exclusive show, produced by Shiver and Dai4Films, reveals rare and previously unseen footage of Posh, Sporty, Scary, Ginger and Baby before Girl Power had fully taken hold. The show’s original footage is used as a spring board to explore why the Spice Girls became a worldwide phenomenon, delve further into their individual characters and analyse their careers beyond the Spice Girls. This intimate home-movie style footage includes rehearsals filmed two years before the girls had their first hit with Wannabe and shows the early beginnings of the conflicts that eventually split the group up, as well as questioning how long it will be before these differences come up again.

The Birth of the Spice Girls will contain original 1994 auditions, their rehearsals in a council-run studio in Maidenhead and the beginnings of the friendships, and power struggles that formed even in the early days that were to define Girl Power. There is also footage of the band’s first choreographed moves as they prepare for the day when songwriters and record company executives come to see their showcase. Also very present, are the early signs of the tensions that would later split the band up, looking at the problems these same issues could cause again for the reformed girl band. The much reported battle for power between Mel B and Geri, Posh’s apparent camera-shy beginnings, Mel C’s role as the peacemaker in the band. Who carried the harmonies without a struggle and who had to work harder vocally?

Monday December 17th, 10pm