The Fizz

Lore & Background

The group originated in December 2004 when Bobby G, Mike Nolan, Cheryl Baker and Shelley Preston briefly reformed as The Original Bucks Fizz for 'The Here and Now Tour'. After legal disputes over the Bucks Fizz name, the group relaunched as OBF in April 2012. They later performed as Cheryl, Mike and Jay - Formerly of Bucks Fizz, and in 2015 became a four-piece with the addition of Bobby McVay. The group rebranded as The Fizz in 2016, releasing their debut album under that name, The F-Z of Pop, in 2017. McVay left in 2018, and the group continued as a trio. In May 2024, Mike Nolan announced his departure, and he was replaced by Matthew Pateman and Nikk Mager, making the group a quartet again.

Reader's Guide

The Fizz represent a continuation of the legacy of Bucks Fizz, a group that won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981. Their significance lies in their ability to sustain a career through multiple name changes and lineup shifts, while still achieving chart success. Their 2017 album The F-Z of Pop reached No.25, marking the highest-charting Bucks Fizz related album in 33 years. The group's 2020 album Smoke & Mirrors reached number 29 in the Official UK Albums Chart and number 6 on the Official Sales Chart. Their persistence through legal battles, health challenges (including Jay Aston's mouth cancer diagnosis in 2018), and member departures demonstrates their resilience. The Fizz continue to release music and perform, with a single released in May 2026.

Did You Know?

• In 2018, Jay Aston was diagnosed with mouth cancer and underwent surgery to have part of her tongue replaced, but returned to performing by November.
• Mike Nolan announced his departure from the group in May 2024, effective later that year, and was replaced by Matthew Pateman and Nikk Mager.
• The group released a single 'A Crazy Shot in the Dark' in May 2026, which peaked at number 31 on the Official UK Charts.

Formation and the Eurovision Triumph

Bucks Fizz were assembled in the winter of 1981 with one singular purpose: to enter the Eurovision Song Contest. Songwriters Nichola Martin and Andy Hill needed performers for their track "Making Your Mind Up," and the process of finding them was anything but straightforward. Mike Nolan, a friend of Martin's, was the first to be approached but initially balked at joining yet another group after his stint with Brooks. Cheryl Baker was recruited from her earlier Eurovision experience with Co-Co in 1978. Auditions yielded Jay Aston and, after Stephen Fischer dropped out due to a musical commitment, Bobby G filled the final slot. The quartet first gathered on 11 January 1981. After winning the UK selection show "A Song for Europe" against acts like Liquid Gold, they flew to Dublin for the main contest. Despite slow early voting, they surged ahead in the middle of the tally and edged out Germany by just four points. The victory launched "Making Your Mind Up" to the top of the charts in the UK and eight other nations, with roughly four million copies sold across the globe.

The Iconic Skirt-Rip Routine

The performance that made Bucks Fizz unforgettable was choreographed by Chrissie Wickham, a former member of the dance troupe Hot Gossip. The routine's centerpiece involved the two male members tearing off the outer skirts worn by Baker and Aston, revealing dramatically shorter mini-skirts beneath. The gag was designed to land precisely on the lyric "when you see some more," turning a pop song into a visual spectacle that audiences across Europe could not forget. The origin of the idea has been disputed for decades: Martin, Baker, and Aston have each claimed credit. Martin noted she had employed a similar trick while performing with her earlier group Rags during the 1977 A Song for Europe heats, and the band even repeated the routine on Top of the Pops after Rags failed to advance. Regardless of who first conceived it, the moment became inseparable from the group's identity. It gave the song a theatrical hook that pure vocal competition could not match, and it remains the single most referenced element of Bucks Fizz's Eurovision appearance to this day.

Chart Dominance and Global Reach

Determined to avoid the fate of a typical Eurovision one-hit wonder, the team behind Bucks Fizz—manager Jill Shirley, producer Andy Hill, and songwriter Martin—pushed the group into a sustained recording career. Their follow-up "Piece of the Action" marked a deliberate shift toward a sleeker, contemporary pop sound and reached No. 12 in the UK. The self-titled debut album for RCA Records also cracked the top 20. Their commercial peak came through three UK number-one singles: "Making Your Mind Up" and "The Land of Make Believe" in 1981, followed by "My Camera Never Lies" in 1982. Additional top-ten entries included "Now Those Days Are Gone," "If You Can't Stand the Heat," "When We Were Young," and "New Beginning (Mamba Seyra)" in 1986. In November 1981 they represented Britain at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, earning the Best Song Award. While the group never broke through commercially in the United States, they became one of the top-selling acts of the 1980s in the UK and charted strongly across Europe and Australia.

Line-up Shifts and the Group's Afterlife

Bucks Fizz's original four-member lineup did not remain intact for long. The most high-profile change came in 1985 when Jay Aston departed and was replaced by Shelley Preston. Over the years the group's membership shifted several times, reflecting the natural churn of a pop act trying to stay relevant across a decade. By the modern era, the group's identity has fractured into competing claims. Bobby G has maintained what he considers the official Bucks Fizz line-up, though that version has been largely inactive since 2018. Meanwhile, a separate act calling itself "the Fizz" continues to perform with other former members of the original group, keeping the music and the skirt-rip spectacle alive on stage. This division means that fans and listeners today may encounter different line-ups under closely related names, each carrying a piece of the group's history. The original creative engine—Martin's songwriting, Hill's production, and Shirley's management—shaped the sound that made the group a defining pop act of the early 1980s, and that imprint persists regardless of which members are currently singing.