Rene, Renata, and Vienna

It wasn't Save Your Love, by Renée and Renato; it was Shaddap You Face, by Joe Dolce (officially, the Joe Dolce Musical Theatre).

Vienna was released in January 1981, and reached No. 2 in the UK chart on 14 February. At No. 1 for the second week, that week, was John Lennon's Woman (Lennon having been assassinated on 8 December 1980). On 21 February, Woman was replaced at No. 1 by Shaddap You Face, which stayed there for three weeks. Vienna remained at No. 2 for all this time (four weeks), and on 8 March Roxy Music's cover version of Lennon's Jealous Guy reached No. 1. Kings of the Wild Frontier, by Adam & the Ants, was No. 2; Shaddap You Face dropped to No. 3, and Vienna to No. 4.

Vienna (with Midge Ure taking lead vocals on his own song) was Ultravox's greatest hit. It went gold in the UK, and became their signature song; it reached No. 1 in Belgium, the Republic of Ireland, and the Netherlands. It was the UK's sixth best selling single of 1981, and in 2012 it was voted Britain's favourite single ever to peak at No. 2 on the charts, in a poll conducted by BBC Radio 2 and the Official Charts Company (OCC). It was subsequently declared an "honorary number one" by the OCC.

Save Your Love, by Renée and Renato (as opposed to Rene and Renata) was released in October 1982, and reached No. 1 in the official UK chart on 18 December – replacing Beat Surrender by The Jam. It stayed at No. 1 for four weeks, was the 1982 Christmas No. 1, and was eventually displaced by Phil Collins's cover version of You Can't Hurry Love (featured, as a supplementary, in the Love Songs round last week).

Renée (real name Hilary Lester) was the female half of Renée and Renato. Nobody (including Wikipedia and IMDb) seems to know much else about Hilary. Of Renato, however, we know that he was born in Blera, a small town near Rome. He became a waiter, and ended up in Sutton Coldfield, in England's West Midlands. According to Wikipedia his surname was Pagliari, but this sounds like a professional name to me (well suited to an Italian singer with operatic ambitions). When auditioning for the ITV talent show New Faces, he caught the attention of Johnny Edward, who'd written Save Your Love and paired Renato up with Hilary to sing it. Edward had previously been a member of the Manish Boys, a group formed by David Bowie early in his career; he was also the creator, controller and voice of Metal Mickey.

Renato died in 2009, after undergoing surgery for a brain tumour.