After Dark (TV series)

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After Dark
South Africa with Trevor Hyett and guests - 11th June 1988
Format	Talk show
Created by	Open Media
No. of episodes	90
Production
Running time	Open-ended
Broadcast
Original channel	Channel 4 and BBC
Original run	May 1987 – March 2003

After Dark was a British late night live discussion programme which ran off and on Channel 4 television between 1987 and 1997, and on the BBC in 2003. In 2002 Mark Thompson, then Channel 4 Chief Executive, said in his MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival: "The channel reinvented and opened out talk on television with programmes like After Dark."^[1]

Presenters included Dr Anthony Clare, Anthony Holden, Stuart Hood, Trevor Hyett, Henry Kelly, Helena Kennedy, Prof. Sir Ian Kennedy, Sheena McDonald, John Underwood and Tony Wilson.

From online history "Off The Telly": Live, late-night and - crucially - open-ended, After Dark was groundbreaking in terms of content, scheduling, format and presentation. Made by production company Open Media and inspired by an Austrian programme called Club 2, After Dark was also typical of 1980s C4 by being alternately absolutely gripping and overwhelmingly boring. The first show was chaired by Tony Wilson and tackled the issue of freedom of information. The half dozen guests were deliberately picked to provoke argument, and often included a member of the public, but the contrivance ended once they were seated on a small circle of sofas and the cameras started to roll. Over four series Tony Blackburn and Peter Tatchell quarrelled over privacy; Billy Bragg and Teresa Gorman argued over how to reduce the number of unemployed; Garth Crooks and Sir Rhodes Boyson disputed the future of football; and Oliver Reed famously disputed "Do Men Have To Be Violent?" by mauling Kate Millett.^[2]

The show itself ended in 1991 but a number of one-off specials and a BBC revival followed.

Contents 1 Start on Channel 4 2 Viewer response 3 Guest response 4 Notable guests and programmes 4.1 Series One 4.1.1 Peter Hain, Clive Ponting, Peter Utley, Colin Wallace and Secrets 4.1.2 Simon Hughes 4.1.3 David Mellor, David Yallop and The Mafia 4.1.4 Teresa Gorman and Is Britain Working? 4.1.5 Jacques Vergès and Klaus Barbie 4.2 Series Two 4.2.1 Freemasonry 4.2.2 Shere Hite and Marriage 4.2.3 William ‘Spider’ Wilson 4.2.4 Bernadette McAliskey 4.2.5 Derry ’68 4.2.6 Israel: 40 Years On 4.2.7 Winston Churchill 4.2.8 Harvey Proctor and Open To Exposure? 4.2.9 Harry Belafonte, Denis Worrall and South Africa 4.2.10 Patricia Highsmith 4.2.11 Bill Margold and Pornography 4.2.12 British Intelligence 4.2.13 Bianca Jagger and Nicaragua 4.2.14 Jonathan Miller and Alternative Medicine 4.2.15 Gerry Adams 4.3 Series Three 4.3.1 Tony Benn and Out Of Bounds 4.3.2 'Blue' and Drugs 4.3.3 Edward Heath 4.3.4 Body Beautiful 4.4 Series Four 4.4.1 Oliver Reed and Kate Millett 4.4.2 Andy Croall and Satanic Ritual Abuse 4.4.3 James Harries and Teachers 4.4.4 The Yorkshire Ripper 5 Channel 4 axing 6 Specials 6.1 Sinéad O'Connor and Ireland: Sex & Celibacy 6.2 Lethal Justice 7 Other notable programmes 8 BBC series 8.1 Tom O'Carroll 9 Channel 4 at 25 10 Cultural references 11 See also 12 External sources 13 References

[edit] Start on Channel 4

Jeremy Isaacs, the founding Chief Executive of Channel 4, wrote an account of the network's early years in his book Storm Over 4. In it he selects twenty-six programmes ('a very personal...choice'), including After Dark, which he describes as follows:

Open-ended talk. Lifted by an astute producer...from Austria's Club 2, it began at midnight and went on till it finished. The aim, discussion between people with burning experience of the subject; e.g. the murderer and the judge. A participant might wait long to utter but in the end his turn came. Viewers could fall asleep in front of it, wake up and find the discussion just hotting up.^[3]

The programme "allowed Isaacs to realise one of his longest-held ambitions. 'When I first started in television at Granada', he explains, 'Sidney Bernstein said to me that the worst words ever uttered on TV were, I'm sorry, that's all we have time for. Especially since they were always uttered just as someone was about to say something really interesting.' By carrying on until the participants ran out of things to say, After Dark became the first programme to banish the need even to think of uttering the dread words."^[4]

The online history "Off The Telly" describes the background: (In 1987) Nighttime, a mixture of films and discussion-based programmes, extended C4's hours until 3am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 23 April^[5]. Channel 4 launched After Dark as an open ended format broadcast on Friday nights (later Saturday nights) that would also be cheap to produce as original programming. There was no 'chair' but a 'host' and the discussion took place around a coffee table in a darkened studio. Due to its late-night scheduling the series was dubbed After Closing Time by one critic.

The producer described the programme in an interview in 2003: "Reality TV is artificial. After Dark is real in the sense that what you see is what you get, which isn't the case with something that's been edited to give the illusion of being real. Other shows wind people up with booze beforehand, then when they're actually on the programme they give them glasses of water. We give our guests nothing until they arrive on set and then they can drink orange juice, or have a bottle of wine. And we let them go to the loo."^[6]

[edit] Viewer response

In 1987 The Times wrote: "After Dark, the closest Britain gets to an unstructured talk show, is already finding that the more serious the chat, the smaller the audience. 'We note that people go for lighter topics', says Channel 4's market research executive Sue Clench...She says that around three million saw some of After Dark in its first slot"^[7]

Subsequently, the audience survey conducted by Channel 4 had After Dark watched by 13% of all adults, rising to what the research company referred to as a "staggering figure" of 28% amongst young men^[8]. One viewer is quoted in the academic study Talk on Television as follows:

After Dark is far better because it allows people to go over all sorts of stages in a discussion and they are not shut off. Well I suppose they are on for three or four hours, but I think that is a really good idea, that you can really work everything out for yourself.^[9]

[edit] Guest response

Author James Rusbridger wrote in The Listener magazine: "When I appeared on a Channel 4 After Dark programme recently my postman, milkman and more than two dozen strangers stopped me in the street and said how much they'd enjoyed it and quoted verbatim extracts from the discussion"^[10]. Catholic priest Father Michael Seed was quoted as saying: "I went on a programme called After Dark on Channel 4 once with a prostitute, a psychiatrist and a gay man. Afterwards they all started coming to see me."^[11]

Journalist Peter Hillmore described appearing on After Dark as follows:

In the age of the glib, packaged sound-bite, a discussion programme that is long and open-ended, lasting as long as the talk is remotely interesting, occasionally longer, seems a necessity. For all its faults, as when Oliver Reed appeared tired and emotional as a newt, the programme fulfilled its purpose and filled a gap. I appeared on it once. It was a strange feeling to realise that if you had failed to make your point properly, you had more time a short while later. So Channel 4's decision to axe it seems incomprehensible and wrong...In his book on the channel, its founder Jeremy Isaacs gave a long list of programmes that he felt summed up its ethos. With the ending of After Dark, not a single programme from the list remains. That is not a coincidence.^[12]

[edit] Notable guests and programmes

[edit] Series One

[edit] Peter Hain, Clive Ponting, Peter Utley, Colin Wallace and Secrets

The first ever After Dark programme (May 1, 1987) was described in The Listener:

After Dark made a historic breakthrough by rediscovering the structure of adult conversation: the ingredients are intelligence, candour and courage, and the absence of impeding structures such as television time barriers. Seven people talked live, from midnight to the early hours of the morning, on a subject dear to our hearts - and at the moment costly to our nerves - secrets. Clive Ponting, ex MOD; Anne-Marie Sandler, French psychiatrist; Peter Hain, former anti-apartheid campaigner; Colin Wallace, former army 'information officer' engaged in psychological warfare in Northern Ireland in the Seventies; Mrs Margaret Moore, widow of one of the computer scientists who have died recently in mysterious circumstances; Isaac Evans, a farmer who campaigns against bureaucratic secrecy, and T. E. Utley, Times political columnist, who still believes Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 'has a point' - all these discussed frankly their experiences and their perception of the consequences of excessive secrecy.^[13]

The Guardian wrote:

A bit of fun, a bit of excitement, and, quite the best idea for a television programme since men sat around the camp fire talking while, in the darkness, watching eyes glowed red....It will be many a midnight before Channel 4 comes up with the subject so on the ball as Secrets and such an enthralling group of guests. Who, you may reasonably ask, is Isaac Evans? He described himself as "a peasant up from the country"...In old age he has, with great simplicity, taken up the cause of small people ruined by secret files...Peter Hain and Clive Ponting (were) referred to affectionately by the chairman, Anthony Wilson, as "You two gaolbirds"...It was suggested that only half a dozen MI5 men were watching After Dark. "On double time," said (Colin) Wallace and gave them a wave.^[14]

[edit] Simon Hughes

In May 1987 - on the second programme of the first series - After Dark broadcast the following correction in relation to the British Member of Parliament Simon Hughes: Mr Hughes has asked us to say that he is not a homosexual, has never been a homosexual and has no intention of becoming a homosexual in the future^[15].

[edit] David Mellor, David Yallop and The Mafia

Later in May 1987 the Financial Times described a discussion about the Mafia:

After Dark may well be cheap but is one of the most interesting innovations for years...Two factors give the programme a special character: its length, which allows time for both personal reminiscence and discussion of theory or principle without that "I must stop you there" malarkey; and the camera arrangements with the participants set in a pool of light within a darkened studio, producing a peculiarly powerful sense of intimacy for late night...The combination of Home Office minister David Mellor, former Cosa Nostra "bagman" Bob Dick, former Scotland Yard intelligence officer Frank Pulley (who made particularly astute political and social comments), New York undercover policeman Douglas le Vien and several journalists who write about organised crime, proved highly productive. After Dark bears out what has long been said: that ordinary discussion programmes have the time only to establish the participants' credentials before going off the air. This programme establishes credentials, moves on to discussion of the principles, and sometimes even manages some interesting conclusions. The points made in the final 15 minutes last Friday, about the differences between Britain and the US in attitudes towards wealth, and the way in which this might explain the puzzling (albeit pleasing) failure, so far, of organised crime in Britain, were the most interesting of the entire discussion. Do not switch on for a "taste" telling yourself that you will go to bed at 1.00. You will still be there at 3.00.^[16]

There were "spectacular corruption allegations from author David Yallop"^[17], described by The Observer as follows:

Perched in the gallery above, a Channel 4 lawyer nervously watches in case the stew bubbles over. His worst moment came at 1.30 yesterday morning when David Yallop...cut short some coy evasions about who heads PII, the Italian variety of freemasonry, by naming him. The lawyer was quietly told that Mr Yallop had just named a senior minister in the Italian Government. Mr Yallop had not gone so far in his book. He also suggested that a member of the British Cabinet was on the board of the same company as some members of PII. Since After Dark, unlike most radio phone-ins, boasts no tape delay, the alleged defamation could not be prevented.^[18]

Chris Horrie and Peter Chippendale detail what followed: "the story had caused horror among the country's journalists, who waited breathlessly for a shower of writs to descend on the programme makers...But although hacks who missed the show swapped videos and endlessly replayed extracts for snippets of information, nothing happened to the programme makers."^[19]. Some years later David Mellor and writer Gaia Servadio described how their friendship started on the programme: "I was there as a Mafiologist"^[20].

[edit] Teresa Gorman and Is Britain Working?

On 12th June 1987, the night after the British General Election, "the first day of the third term of Thatcherism - a show called Is Britain Working? brought together victorious Tory MP Teresa Gorman; 'Red Wedge' pop singer Billy Bragg; Helen from the Stonehenge Convoy; old colonialist Colonel Hilary Hook...and Adrian, one of the jobless. It was a perfect example of the chemistry you can get. There were unlikely alliances (Bragg and Hook) and Mrs Gorman"^[21] "stormed off the set, claiming she had been misled about the nature of the programme"^[22]. The Independent described the programme:

the wonderful open-ended discussion show mused through the early hours of Saturday...someone took umbrage...It was Mrs Gorman, marching away beyond the table lamps into the outer darkness..."Now we'll have a civilised discussion," said Billy Bragg.^[23]

[edit] Jacques Vergès and Klaus Barbie

After Dark, "ending its ten-week trial run, has been a remarkable success" wrote The Independent in July 1987. "You catch me in the unusual act of listening," said Edward Teller...at the end of his stint on the sofas, and the series has brought to television the rare acts of listening, thinking and thorough and subtle discussion...In the small hours of Saturday morning, Maitre Jacques Verges, defence counsel to the Butcher of Lyons, leaned back on a sofa with a half-glass of something pale and put his case. A journalist and a canon and a Resistance fighter and a concentration camp survivor listened and put theirs."^[24] Verges said "the reason people were still prosecuted for massacring Jews was because the Jews were white; if they had not been, the crimes would have been swept under the carpet long ago.^[25]

The Guardian described what happened:

(After Dark) had Maitre Verges on a panel that discussed whether it was ever desirable, or even possible, to forgive (Klaus) Barbie 43 years after his crimes...Verges attempted to indict French crimes in Africa, imperial crimes everywhere...Even in this quiet setting in the studio, Verges is enigmatic and infuriating...It was canon Paul Oestreicher who isolated from the trial the real distinction between Barbie and the Nazi regime (and) the imperial brutality Verges wanted to expose: the unique evil was that the Nazis built a system and a policy for the extermination of whole peoples.^[26]

"Verges is clearly a man who knows how not to lose an argument even when he cannot win it," wrote the Sunday Times "but there was a moment when his mind-boggling calm was almost shattered. It came when a young American lawyer (Eli Rosenbaum) announced that he had flown in for the programme specifically to confront Verges with evidence of his anti-Semitic, right-wing connections and general moral corruption. It was a moment of high drama, but it was the outraged American who cracked first. "You're losing your temper," the old maitre instructed him. "That is no way for a good lawyer to make his case." Game and set, if not match, to Verges^[27].

[edit] Series Two

[edit] Freemasonry

At the start of the second series, The Independent reported under the headline "Masons pull out of TV debate with policeman" that "Chief Inspector Brian Woollard, the Metropolitan Police officer at the centre of the Freemasonry controversy, will go on national television tonight to state his case"^[28], Woollard who "completed 33 years in the force, earned seven commendations, and was responsible for tracking down the Angry Brigade"^[29]. The Listener magazine described the programme:

After Dark turned its attention, with some daring, to the issue of Masonic influence in the police force. Daring because a truly unfettered programme - live, under virtually no constraints of length - it chose to deal with matters both potentially libellous and believed by some to be bound by sub judice limitations. The central figure was a police officer who alleges he was suspended because his investigations into fraud came up against corrupt Masonic loyalties...There were two ex-Masons, a clergyman who abandoned the brotherhood on religious grounds and a solicitor, Sir David Napley, who had briefly flirted with it in the old days...Former Deputy Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Colin Woods spoke unofficially for the police. A journalist, Martin Short, gave a run-down of the history of the Masonic movement and T Dan Smith told how in jail he got the Masonic knuckle squeeze from both wardens and prisoners...many an insight into the kind of society we inhabit, its anxieties and preoccupations^[30].

[edit] Shere Hite and Marriage

Mark Lawson wrote in The Independent:

where else would James Dearden, screenwriter of Fatal Attraction, be required to sit while sexpert Shere Hite gave the ending of the film away and demolished his characterisation? In a discussion of what women really wanted, Dearden and Ms Hite were joined by Mary Whitehouse, Naim Attallah and proponents of career motherhood, lesbianism and open marriage...the advantage of the length is the opportunity to see positions crumbling and being constructed. We began with a rough consensus and Mary Whitehouse designated the runt of the discussion. People sighed and shifted their eyes when she spoke. A couple of hours on, we had the unlikely alliance of Dearden and Whitehouse against Hite^[31].

The Evening Standard described this as "totally compelling viewing":

It is not simply what is said that is important. Equally fascinating are small gestures and expressions, beautifully caught at significant moments by some astute camerawork; the group's physical and verbal interaction with each other; and above all, the ways in which we are able to see how and why an individual might have arrived at his/her set of ideas and beliefs^[32].

[edit] William ‘Spider’ Wilson

The Sunday Times said the programme on March 4th, 1988 "certainly remains lodged in many minds. Spider...was “discovered” by a programme researcher ferreting out characters at London’s cardboard city. Spider duly came into the Channel 4 studios, cobweb tattooed on his forehead, to talk about drug addiction, being gay and living rough. (Host) Helena Kennedy recalls that homeless Spider, sitting on the plump sofas in the mock studio living room with fellow guests, did not take kindly to being lectured about fecklessness by John Heddle, a Tory MP."^[33]. Kennedy wrote about the confrontation:

"Spider" Wilson's argument with John Heddle, who at that time was chairman of the Tory backbench housing committee, was a perfect example of what could happen. Heddle's tactic was to lecture the feckless Spider, and tell him to pull up his socks. The argument actually felt quite menacing. Ironically, Heddle later committed suicide, while Spider went into rehab, sobered up and now has both a home and a job.^[34]

[edit] Bernadette McAliskey

The Financial Times wrote of the programme on 18th March, 1988 [11]: Bernadette McAliskey (formerly Devlin) was allowed to talk throughout as though the British Army were waging war against "her" people. Those who remember the Army going in to protect "her" people in 1968 will find this odd.^[35]

[edit] Derry ’68

"A recent discussion on the Irish civil rights struggle in 1968 provided one of the best nights' viewing in ages. Eamonn McCann dominated the whole discussion, destroying anyone who dared to cross him"^[36]. The television reviewer of the New Statesman wrote on 13th May 1988 that "The After Dark discussion, Derry 68: Look Back in Anger?, was simply the most enlightening programme on Northern Ireland I have ever seen"^[37].

[edit] Israel: 40 Years On

On 14th May 1988 the Daily Telegraph wrote:

Tonight's edition of After Dark...will mark the 40th anniversary of Israel. The programme is likely to cause controversy, as the Shadow Foreign Secretary Gerald Kaufman and a number of Israelis will appear alongside Faisal Aweidah, the hardine PLO representative in London. For Kaufman, the appearance will not be without a political risk, mainly of a backlash from British Jews who are unlikely to be happy about him appearing alongside Aweidah, a supporter of Yasser Arafat. However for the Israelis involved in the programme there are even greater dangers. They will brave the wrath of the government of their country - where it is illegal for citizens to share a platform with the PLO. One participant...has already backed out after being told she would face arrest when returning home after the broadcast.^[38].

[edit] Winston Churchill

The Socialist Worker described the 28th May 1988 edition of "my favourite chat show":

Winston Churchill: Hero or Madman?..Unfortunately the character arguing this was none other than the "historian" David Irving...Here sat a man who was pro-Hitler, who was insulting the legendary Churchill. Facing him was a guy...who had been Churchill's private secretary for ten or so years. And there was Lord Hailsham, who as Quintin Hogg had been a Tory MP at the time. But it was not Irving they reserved their contempt and anger for. Occasionally they got a bit annoyed by him, but it was the left representative they despised...dear old respectable Jack Jones, former leader of the transport workers' union^[39].

As the Radio Times wrote later: "The most explosive argument was between Lord Hailsham and veteran trade unionist Jack Jones. There was...50 years of hate between them"^[40].

[edit] Harvey Proctor and Open To Exposure?

Milton Shulman in The Listener magazine wrote about the edition broadcast on 4th June 1988:

I never plan to watch After Dark and usually am surprised to see that it is on when I return from some social occasion on Saturday night and switch on the box at one o'clock...My own favourite evening was involved with the subject of ethics and journalism. At first Harvey Proctor was the main focus of our concern as he claimed he was hounded out of public life, not because of his sexual predilections but because of his right-wing political views. But his complaints, as well as Christine Keeler's grievance...about her treatment during the Profumo affair, soon faded into insignificance compared to the weird admissions of the journalists about what they got up to to get a story. Nina Myskow admitted she had jumped into bed with a hunk of masculine beefcake after she had seen him in a male beauty contest she had been judging. Annette Witheridge of the News of the World told how she had sent a rent boy, wired for sound, around to the home of the late Russell Harty^[41].

And the Evening Standard described "riveting television":

Harvey Proctor - the Spanking MP of tabloid legend, now resigned from his Billericay constituency and running a shirt shop in Richmond - in debate round a studio table with a cross-section of his tormentors...Proctor turned on (a reporter). He drew from his pocket a story she'd written, headlined Spank Row MP Urged to Take AIDS Test, linking him allegedly to "a former male lover believed to have the killer disease AIDS". Had she checked this out? Had she attempted to contact the "former male lover"? No...Annette Witheridge's admission that she'd left this story to others to check out, hadn't discovered for four months that it was false, and hadn't apologised because nobody had asked her to, marked a turning point in the debate^[42].

[edit] Harry Belafonte, Denis Worrall and South Africa

The Times wrote of the programme on 11th June 1988: After the Nelson Mandela concert last summer, (After Dark) ran a discussion programme including Harry Belafonte, Breyten Breytenbach, Denis Worrall and Ismail Ayob (Mandela's lawyer). Belafonte came directly from Wembley with a police escort for his only British television appearance. Programme hired a private plane to fly in Breytenbach. Worrall came from South Africa at After Dark's expense. But this largess is apparently unusual^[43].

The Guardian described this as the most civilised and stimulating of current TV programmes^[44] (pictured here with a list of guests here) and later Victoria Brittain described the "extraordinary experience of debating with Worrall":

Every letter I received from viewers focussed on how the programme had changed their perception of him...Harry Belafonte said how much he looked forward to meeting him because of his image in the US as 'an enlightened voice'...After Dark was probably the first television programme accurately to reflect the real balance of forces on the South African political scene...The significance of the programme...was how it shifted the debate from the white political agenda followed so assiduously by South Africa-based correspondents, and gave due weight to the real opponents of the regime.^[45].

A year later it became public that there was "a revealing off-camera incident between Harry Belafonte and South Africa's ex-ambassador Dennis Worrall. For the first three hours of the programme Worrall played Mr Nice Guy but in the closing 30 minutes the diplomatic layers peeled off. The noble Belafonte shook his head regretfully as Worrall's tone changed and he said he would pray for Worrall. Trying to regain lost ground after the programme, Worrall went up to Belafonte and, according to the production team, said: Well, Mr Belafonte, you're really quite intelligent, aren't you?"^[46].

[edit] Patricia Highsmith

Following the programme broadcast on June 18th 1988 The Guardian wrote:

After Dark, a three hour discussion on subjects which will not always bear the light of day, was about...murder. There was Patricia Highsmith, the thriller writer, inquisitive as a monkey, Georgina Lawton, Ruth Ellis's daughter...Lord Longford...the Rev James Nelson...(and) David Howden, the father of a girl who was murdered in her bedroom two years ago..."I don't know if you can imagine the scene of my daughter's bedoom. Friends and neighbours had to go and clean that bedroom up. The stains and fingerprints. They had to take the carpet up, sandpaper the floor and get rid of the marks, buy a new carpet and put it down". "What kind of marks?" asked Patricia Highsmith, who will be slaughtered herself some day.^[47].

The Today newspaper wrote:

There have been some very peculiar people on After Dark...There was the skinhead who left mid-show to look for fresh supplies of lager. And two weeks ago journalist Peter Hillmore sweated so much I thought I would have to throw him a rubber ring. But for sheer oddness, none has outmatched crime writer-cum-New York bag lady lookalike Patricia Highsmith...asking a series of staggeringly daft and insensitive questions to poor David Howden, whose daughter was strangled by a maniac as she slept^[48].

[edit] Bill Margold and Pornography

The Evening Standard reviewed the 25th June 1988 discussion:

In the business, they call him Poppa Bear (or is it Bare?)...Bill Margold, a large American with the vocabulary of a peanut, and one of the guests appearing on this week's After Dark. The subject was pornography and a well balanced mixture of perversion, puritanism and prurience combined to entertain and enlighten insomniacs^[49].

The Guardian added:

Margold's breezy definition of hard core - "up, in, out, off" - belies his ambition to give the public genuine artistic storylines...I was waiting for someone, preferably a woman, to hang one on big, burly Poppa Bear, who is about the most arrogant, bullying, bulldozer loudmouth this sleep-cheating series has so far brought us^[50].

All editions of After Dark ended with music, more or less related to the subject of the week. The Evening Standard noted: "This intelligent (mostly), thought-provoking discussion was brought to an end by the song It's illegal, it's immoral, or it makes you fat"^[51].

[edit] British Intelligence

In a discussion titled "British Intelligence" and broadcast on 16th July 1988, the guests included Merlyn Rees, H. Montgomery Hyde, and a man called Robert Harbinson, described by Francis Wheen in The Independent newspaper as follows:

Robin Bryans, a...travel writer and sometime music teacher who also goes under the names Robert Harbinson and Christopher Graham. (His opponent) is Kenneth de Courcy...who likes to be known as the Duc de Grantmesnil...Though both are Irish by birth, both have intelligence connections (Bryans was a friend of Blunt), both are ex- jailbirds and both are - how shall we say? - quite eccentric...(Bryans) denounced de Courcy on the Channel 4 programme After Dark. His allegations are too confused (and too libellous) to be summarised here, but names such as Mountbatten, Shackleton, Churchill, Blunt seem to pop up often.^[52]

Bryans himself wrote:

Before the cameras, we delighted to talk about Adeline de la Feld's family upsetting Mussolini with their writings. I was then asked by Robin Ramsay of the Lobster magazine about my own early writing which he knew about from his co-editor Stephen Dorril who had interviewed me for his book Honeytrap, the sad story of my friend Stephen Ward hounded by the Establishment to suicide in 1963. But the Channel Four masterminds wanted to know about my war activities and the following day Montgomery Hyde, a barrister, phoned me to warn me that a High Court writ was on its way^[53].

The journalist Paul Foot described it as "one magnificent edition of After Dark in which Robin Ramsay excelled himself"^[54]. During the discussion, another guest, retired GCHQ employee Jock Kane, claimed "that the new procedures recommended by the Security Commission regarding the removal of documents from GCHQ had not been implemented four years later"^[55].

The following week The Guardian newspaper reported:

Thirty Labour MPs yesterday called for a judicial inquiry into claims that the Government has used private security companies to carry out undercover operations on its behalf. A motion, drawn up by Mr Ken Livingstone (Brent E), refers to statements made by Mr Gary Murray - a private investigator, who says he has been employed by the Government - on Channel 4's After Dark programme^[56].

[edit] Bianca Jagger and Nicaragua

John Underwood wrote of the programme broadcast on 6th August 1988: "I recall hosting an edition of...After Dark in which (Bianca Jagger) intellectually crushed Dr John Silber, a senior adviser to Ronald Reagan, and Roberto Ferrey, an apologist for the Contras. Furthermore, she left Sir Alfred Sherman lost for words, a feat rarely achieved before or since"^[57].

[edit] Jonathan Miller and Alternative Medicine

In the New Statesman the writer Sean French described "the best moment of my week" occuring at the end of the 3rd September 1988 edition:

After Dark had been debating the problems of alternative medicine. After a few hours of acrimonious debate, each of the participants was asked to say a few words on what they hoped for the future of medicine. The last comment of all was made by Dr Jonathan Miller. Since he had been the evening's most vociferous opponent of fringe medicine I expected him to deliver a final diatribe. Instead of this, he said he wanted to speak of something which was more important than any kind of medicine delivered on a one to one basis:

"The main welfare which was ever conferred on the human community was actually by social administration. They were the improvement of drainage, the rationalisation of diet and a humane society, administered by a just and equitable government which actually sees human welfare as being something which has to be honoured according to principles of distributive justice."

Therefore, he concluded, he thought the most pressing need was "the ousting of this appalling government"^[58].

[edit] Gerry Adams

The following week Channel 4 dropped plans to invite the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams

"to appear on its late night talk show After Dark, after protests from other contributors. The Independent Broadcasting Authority said then that it would have banned Mr Adams on the grounds that his views were offensive to public feeling. Channel 4 avoided a dispute with the IBA by dropping the programme, saying it had only wanted Mr Adams to appear if a suitable context could be found and that, at such short notice, it had been impossible to achieve that."^[59]."The decision was taken by Liz Forgan, Channel 4's director of programmes."^[60]

"On Thursday September 8, Channel 4 took a decision which has serious implications for freedom of speech on British television...The arguments used - including what appears to be an unprecedented threat to use the 1981 Broadcasting Act - and the way the decision was taken, were as significant as the decision itself. The invitation to Adams was made public...by Paul Wilkinson, professor of international relations at Aberdeen University and chairman of the Research Foundation for the Study of Terrorism. The programme makers asked him for advice and contacts - they did not invite him to appear. Wilkinson publicly attacked the proposal to have Adams on the programme. Tory MPs, including Neil Hamilton, Mrs Thatcher's parliamentary private secretary, and Tony Marlow, joined what was likely to lead to a chorus of protest. C4 was under pressure to react. Initially, it said that Adams would only appear if a 'suitable context' could be found. A second statement, announcing the decision that the programme had been abandoned, said that it was impossible, at such short notice, to achieve that 'satisfactory context'...C4 thereby successfully avoided a dispute with the IBA...(which) announced later that day that, if necessary, it would have used Section 4 of the Broadcasting Act to stop Adams appearing"^[61] "A spokesman for the IBA said: '...The fact that it is a live programme also means that there is no editorial control over remarks Mr Adams may make.' The issue comes a month after an appeal from the Prime Minister to the British media...to withhold publicity from IRA sympathisers."^[62]

"The programme...was to have explored what a C4 spokesman described as a full range of opinions on Northern Ireland."^[63]"After Dark in the past has included Roberto Ferrey, a member of the Contras sevenman directorate, Klaus Barbie's defence counsel (Jacques Verges), and a man who admitted having molested 200 schoolchildren...The decision to drop the programme was taken as the programme makers - who often do not finalise the show until Friday midday - were trying to get a Tory spokesman from the mainland...Ian Gow, who left the government over its Irish policy, initially said he had no objection in principle to appearing, but then changed his mind."^[64]

The row was placed in context in the academic study The Media and Northern Ireland:

There were a few straws in the wind in the autumn of 1988 which, with hindsight, suggested what was on the way. In September Channel Four pulled an After Dark programme which was to feature Gerry Adams...Most journalists though saw this as an isolated case of self-censorship brought on by the postBallygawley atmosphere.^[65]

An alternative view is provided by Laura K. Donohue (writing in the Cardozo Law Review ^[66]), who summarises Professor Keith Ewing and Conor Gearty as follows:

"at the urging of the British Government, Channel 4 eliminated one of the After Dark programs, in which Gerry Adams was scheduled to appear."^[67]

Following a debate in the House of Commons Liz Forgan of Channel 4 challenged this account in a letter to The Times:

After Dark considered inviting Gerry Adams on to the programme, not simply for him to express his views but to hold him to account for his apology for vile acts of terrorism against the vigorous challenge of five other participants. Michael Mates cites this as an example of the media failing to put its house in order. He omits to mention that in fact the invitation was never issued and programme was never made or transmitted because I...decided that we could not gather enough other participants on that date of sufficient authority to ensure that the programme did not turn into a free run for Mr Adams and flout the normal standards of due impartiality"^[68].

[edit] Series Three

[edit] Tony Benn and Out Of Bounds

The first programme of the third series was titled Out Of Bounds [12]:

1988 was the year of the tri-centenary of the Bill of Rights, yet in May 1989, in the shadowy studio of Channel 4's After Dark programme, a group of former British and US intelligence agents discussed the merits and evils of new legislation on official secrets. When this legislation completes its processes through Parliament such a gathering is likely to become illegal.^[69]

The Financial Times wrote:

Channel 4's After Dark triumphantly broke all the rules from the beginning...The first of the new series on Saturday proved that the formula is still working extremely well. The subject was official secrecy, and during the course of the night remarks included: "I was in Egypt at the time, plotting the assassination of Nasser" and "Wilson and Heath were destroyed in part by the action of intelligence agents" and (spoken with incredulity) "You mean we shouldn't have got rid of Allende? The hostility between just two of the participants, which often brings most life to the programme, occurred this time between Tony Benn and ex CIA man Miles Copeland, and it was the fundamental difference in political outlook between these two which informed the entire discussion. Anyone who regarded Benn as a dangerous "loony leftie" but watched right through until 2.00 may have been astonished at his thoroughly conservative British attitudes.^[70]

Tony Benn wrote in his diary, later published as "The End of an Era":

Saturday 13 May - In the evening I went to take part in this live television programme After Dark with John Underwood in the chair. It was an open-ended discussion which started at about midnight and went on till the early hours. The other participants were the historian Lord Dacre, Eddie Chapman, who had been a double agent during the war, Anthony Cavendish, who is a former MI6 and MI5 officer, Miles Copeland (an ex-CIA man), James Rusbridger, who has worked with MI5 at one stage, and Adela Gooch, a defence journalist from the Daily Telegraph. Every one of them made admissions or came out with most helpful information. I was terribly pleased with it.^[71]

The Listener magazine described the programme:

The new Official Secrets Act has just received the Queen's assent. This may be the last time for some years that any disclosures can be made on such matters...After Dark exists for mysterious reasons, probably something to do with a necessary safety-valve in a climate of increasing pressure on the media...Its strength is that it has rescued that endangered species, genuinely spontaneous conversation, and presented it absolutely without frills. It does not have to rely on a presenter or on the glamour of its guests, as other talk shows do. Its force is its unique lack of inhibition in dealing with very controversial issues without exhibitionism...an invaluable programme^[72].

The Guardian reported on guests who did not appear because of concerns about contempt of court:"Michael Randle and Pat Pottle, who admitted helping the spy, George Blake, escape from prison in 1966...have been dropped from the...programme...Mr Randle and Mr Pottle were arrested and released on police bail last week after admitting in a book that they had helped Blake escape"^[73]. Michael Randle eventually appeared on After Dark, fourteen years later, on March 22nd 2003.

[edit] 'Blue' and Drugs

Two weeks later The Times wrote:

The sexiest show of the week by far is After Dark...Saturday night's talking point was the demon drug crack, a subject which would normally leave this viewer in a state of lacquered composure. Again, however, one's hackles soon rose and one was up there, punching the air, taking sides. Unfortunately the debate was hijacked by a black musician called 'Blue', who shouted everyone down with non-sequiturs. Eventually he got up and left^[74].

[edit] Edward Heath

On 10th June 1989, "in the course of a bad-tempered late-night television discussion programme during the European election campaign in June he (former Prime Minister Edward Heath) contemptuously rejected the possibility posed by the former American Defence Secretary Richard Perle that the political map of Europe was about to be transformed: "Does anyone seriously believe that these satellite countries are going to become free democracies and does anyone really believe that Moscow is going to see the disintegration of the Soviet empire?""^[75]

This was the first time a former Prime Minister appeared on After Dark. Edward Heath was to be a guest again, on 2nd March 1991, discussing the Gulf with Lord Weidenfeld and Adnan Khashoggi.

[edit] Body Beautiful

In September 1989 the Evening Standard said After Dark "provided us with the best talk, entertainment and drama of the weekend, when a group sat down to discuss The Body Beautiful. On one seat sat Mandy Mudd, representing the London Fat Woman's Group...Strategically seated next to her on the sofa was the exquisite Suzanne Younger, Miss United Kingdom...The most impressive guests were Molly Parkin, who asked all the right questions; ex-body builder Zoe Warwick, whose perceptiveness and incisive comments kept opening up new areas of discussion; and Professor Arthur Marwick, who had to bear the brunt of everyone's criticism and abuse...Ms Mudd and disabled actor Nabil Shaban shouted him down^[76].

[edit] Series Four

[edit] Oliver Reed and Kate Millett

In January 1991 - at the height of the Gulf War - Oliver Reed appeared on an edition discussing militarism, masculine stereotypes and violence to women. Reed drank alcohol during the broadcast, leading him to become drunk, aggressive and incoherent. He referred to another member of the panel, who had a moustache, as 'tache' and used offensive language. After one hour Reed returned from the toilet and, getting more to drink, rolled on top of the noted feminist author Kate Millett, who then complained (though she later asked for a tape of the show to entertain her friends^[77]).

Another guest on the programme, author Neil Lyndon, wrote an article in the Independent about the experience^[78], subsequently criticised as follows:

In contrast to Mr Reed, who at least could be described as Rabelaisian, Mr Lyndon comes across as a rather nannified person aghast at the great actor's grotesquerie, at his explosive comments...I myself was under the influence of a cheeky little Bordeaux for the large part of the programme and, scandalised as Mr Lyndon will be to hear, I, too, share Ollie's problem: I thought it was all a bit of a "hoot". It's a pity the media as a whole is too hypocritical to appreciate a bit of clowning; in my humble opinion just what the wine-merchant ordered at this time of international crisis.^[79]

The programme's editor told the full story in a letter published by the British television trade magazine Broadcast:

The team responsible for After Dark were naturally pleased that Broadcast chose our programme as one of the most significant in Channel 4's history in your anniversary issue. Since you referred to the edition in which the late Oliver Reed took part, this seems a good time to correct some of the myths which have surrounded the programme since it was transmitted on 26 January 1991.

Although Reed was not the only disruptive guest in the history of After Dark, what put this particular show into the headlines was not so much Reed's behaviour as C4's. It took the show off the air for 20 minutes, filling the space with an old documentary about coal mining. When our programme returned, Reed was still on set and still disruptive.

That night Reed's behaviour was certainly causing concern. But neither the production team nor host Helena Kennedy felt the situation was out of control. Kennedy told us the guests could themselves decide whether and when to ask Reed to leave the set.

That night, while the then commissioning editor of After Dark, Michael Atwell, was watching the show, he was phoned by someone representing himself as the 'duty officer' of the Independent Broadcasting Authority. This individual said an angry Michael Grade, then Chief Executive of C4, had demanded the programme be stopped. We sought to reassure Atwell, explaining that After Dark often received hoax calls and urged him to check further with his C4 superiors. We could not help reflecting that if Grade were truly upset it would have been more sensible for him to call either the studio or C4, rather than the regulator. However Michael Atwell, without further consultation, decided to stop transmission. We let the guests continue their discussions, though live broadcasting was obviously no longer possible.

But why did live transmission then resume after 20 minutes? Because further enquries by Atwell revealed that Grade was away on his boat. In fact it was Liz Forgan, awoken at home, who said the programme should be put back on air. The curious event of the disappearance of a live programme provided Fleet Street with some funny stories, not all of them true (but many are still recycled). We at Open Media were asked by C4 to issue a joint statement which would have absolved C4 from responsibility. This we refused to do. Six days later Atwell quietly admitted on C4's Right To Reply that After Dark was not implicated in the screw-up.

Viewers with long memories may recall that Reed was asked to leave by the other guests some while after the show resumed transmission. Atwell kept his job at C4 and axed the show at the end of that run^[80].

In his column in the Daily Mirror, Victor Lewis-Smith boasted of his hoax call: The show was taken off air not by C4, but by...little-old-wine-drinking-me, sitting at home, far from the TV studio...Once connected, I shouted: "Michael Grade is furious about this. Take the bloody programme off ... now!"^[81].

Channel 4's Deputy Programme Director, John Willis, wrote an internal memo: "Oliver Reed got drunk and a hoaxer caused the programme briefly to be taken off air. I view the latter with a great deal more seriousness than the former...1,000 calls from an audience estimated at just 300,000. Remarkable."^[82].

[edit] Andy Croall and Satanic Ritual Abuse

Following the discussion on 9th March 1991, After Rochdale [13], the Mail On Sunday reported:

(Andy) Croall...was suspended by Nottinghamshire county council at a time when the authority was at the centre of a row over so-called ritual child abuse. Britain's first alleged case of 'satanic' abuse was handled by his staff, and led to a debate on national television. On Channel Four's After Dark programme...Mr Croall said that abortion was the 'greatest form of child abuse' and claimed that Christians could help abused children better than social workers. He was suspended from his...post for four months^[83].

The Daily Telegraph reported: More than 100 Christians gathered outside County Hall to demonstrate their support for Mr Andrew Croall...Members of the National and Local Government Officers Association, meanwhile, held a protest backing the suspension. His supporters rallied before a meeting of the county social services committee. Mr Croall's remarks...had outraged members of NALGO, who called for his resignation^[84].

Mr Croall was "reinstated in August (1991), subject to restrictions that denied him direct responsibility for child care"^[85]. He resigned in 1992 and took a full-time job with a born-again Christian organisation^[86].

[edit] James Harries and Teachers

The New Statesman described the programme broadcast on 23rd March 1991:

James Harries, aged 12, sat perched forward on the edge of his seat, dwarfed by the upholstery that threatened to devour both him and his blonde mop of frizzy curls. Annis (Garfield) was too busy pouring wine to notice anything more than where the next bottle was coming from. And when Peter (Davies) was not receiving a refill, he was lighting up another cigarette and attacking anything that smacked of tolerance. This bizarre trio transformed a potentially tedious After Dark into the most extraordinary three hours of television all week...Anthony Clare in the chair had an enormously difficult job. "I've chaired many After Dark discussions," he said, "and we've had politicians, sexologists...but I've never seen any group of people less willing to listen to each other's point of view". Thank heaven, in all this, for Russell Profitt (deputy director of education in Southwark) and Zoe Warwick (daughter of A.S. Neill, and head teacher at Summerhill)^[87].

[edit] The Yorkshire Ripper

Today described the programme broadcast on 6th April 1991:

The Yorkshire Ripper may have turned killer because he was forced to wear short trousers as a child, his father claimed yesterday. Young Peter Sutcliffe was humiliated by being the only boy in his school wearing them, John Sutcliffe said on television. "Looking back, it was terrible we made the poor devil wait all that time," Mr Sutcliffe said..."We were very unjust to him". Mr Sutcliffe...admitted he had never visited his son since his transfer to top security Broadmoor hospital - on the orders of the Ripper's wife Sonia Sutcliffe...He said Sonia was "extremely strange" but added: "There's nothing I would do to come between them if they feel that way".^[88].

The Daily Star added:

Mr Sutcliffe also blamed a teenage motorcycle accident for turning his son into a killer. "Apparently he damaged his head in the pile-up. From that moment on, from being a pretty introverted young man, he was just the opposite and became very, very extrovert. There was an absolute personality change"...Mr Sutcliffe...also claimed his son was not a "monster". "I believe some people are born evil, but my son wasn't one of them. There's nothing now evil about him. I wish you could all meet him. You'd be amazed how sensitive, kind he is".^[89].

[edit] Channel 4 axing

In 1991 Channel 4 announced the end of the series, in an action which became the subject of a leader in The Times^[90], and was described in a Mail On Sunday article headed The dawn of a bland new day as "something died when After Dark was quietly killed off in the shadows last week":

"Something deeply symbolic happened last week as the important players in British television were travelling to Edinburgh to discuss the crisis in their industry. A small low-budget programme called After Dark was axed by Channel 4...it has the raw, dangerous edge which only truly live television can achieve...Last week After Dark's independent producers...were called in by Channel 4 to be told their contract was not to be renewed. No explanation was given at the time. But the true reason has now emerged. Its slot is to be filled by something called TV Heaven, repeats of popular light entertainment hits of the past such as Please Sir, Upstairs Downstairs,The Prisoner and The Avengers...

A list of recent participants gives some idea of what After Dark was about: Shere Hite and Mary Whitehouse discussing marriage...Jessica Mitford and Derek Nimmo's chauffeur on Servants. Archduke Karl Habsburg and Peregrine Worsthorne on Royalty and Hans Eysenck and Xaviera Hollander on Bodies. At its best After Dark revived the forgotten art of intelligent conversation. Its participants were not hemmed in by the sound bite...the conversation lasted as long as they wished it to...

The truth is that Channel 4 became nervous of After Dark. The fact that it went out live, one of the very last programmes to do so, added to its dangers. There were some uncomfortable rows - Teresa Gorman storming off the set, a crack addict losing all self-control, a resident of Cardboard City called Spider howling with rage...Michael Grade feels he must get the ratings up and the costs down. And the cheapest form of television available is the library shelf.^[91]

The Independent newspaper noted: Grade's programming is confused: he axed the talk show...allegedly to make way for even more innovative programmes, yet replaced it with a series of Seventies repeats. He praised After Dark lavishly in public but, in a letter to Edward Heath, said it "promised more than it delivered".^[92]

An open letter signed by Professor Ian Kennedy, Buzz Aldrin, Billy Bragg, Beatrix Campbell, Lord Dacre, Gerald Kaufman, Mary Midgley, Richard Perle, Merlyn Rees, Richard Shepherd, Ralph Steadman, Peter Ustinov, Lord Weidenfeld and many others, was published, saying

We have learnt with great concern of Channel 4's decision not to continue with the television discussion programme After Dark. Some of us have worked on and with this production, others have been its on-screen guests, still others have no professional connection with the programme but as viewers have found After Dark uniquely entertaining, instructive and informative. We do not want to see it disappear."^[93]

Angela Lambert wrote a few weeks later in The Independent:

I am truly sorry to hear that the Saturday small hours talk show After Dark is to be dropped by Channel 4. It was the most original programme on television, and the only one in which the sound of the human voice - angry, boring, repetitive, excitable, but occasionally passionate, revealing and unforgettable - overcame the patina of artifice with which television habitually polishes and tidies up its speakers. Only on After Dark could we have heard the rolling Russian timbre of Tatyana Tolstaya...or seen Clare Short squirm as Tony Howard wondered why, if she was so protective about her private life, she'd talked on radio to Anthony Clare...Only After Dark had the leisurely pace that made possible the exchange between the Holocaust survivor Rabbi Hugo Gryn and Yasser Arafat's PR voice Karma Nabulsi, whose mutual desire for a world in which their grandchildren could play together was so moving; and allowed Wendy Savage to admit to her own continuing pain at performing abortions. Late as the show was (and being open-ended, it sometimes ran till 3am) it was the most compulsive and dangerous viewing on the air. That'll be why they dropped it.^[94]

[edit] Specials

From 1993 Channel 4 broadcast a number of After Dark one-off specials [14]. In 1995 the Financial Times wrote:

Channel 4 ended its remarkable season on capital punishment, 'Lethal Justice', by reviving After Dark, the best studio discussion format ever created; why they do not run it 52 weeks a year is a mystery. Being live may mean enduring bores...but you can also come across amazing people - a former American prison governor in this instance - who, most unusually, have enough time to explain their ideas. As so often with After Dark I switched on to watch 10 minutes and stayed till the end^[95]

In 1997 a Channel 4 executive was said by The Guardian to be "insistent that 'it's a popular misconception that we killed it off. In fact we never lost it. We haven't done another series, but we did a one-off After Dark recently in our abortion season'. Bizarrely, Channel 4 cited After Dark as a model of the kind of cerebral programme it wanted when inviting (independent production company) submissions in May... 'I can't think of any ideas that would make better late-night programming than After Dark' ^[96], he said, echoing the words of the original commissioning executive of After Dark, Seamus Cassidy^[97], who in an interview to the Irish News in 2005 said, 'I'm probably most proud of After Dark' ^[98].

[edit] Sinéad O'Connor and Ireland: Sex & Celibacy

In 1995 "Sinéad O'Connor was so interested in a discussion about abuse and the Catholic church that she rang in to ask if she could appear. They sent a taxi to her home."^[99] (After Dark) "made a brief reappearance last Saturday night when, true to its unpredictable form, Sinéad O'Connor walked on to the set 10 minutes before closedown."^[100] Host Helena Kennedy later described the event in an interview with The Sunday Times:

On that occasion, former taoiseach, Garrett FitzGerald, was sharing the sofas with a Dominican monk and a representative of the Catholic church. “While we were on the air, Sinead O’Connor called in,” says Kennedy. “Then I got a message in my earpiece to say she had just turned up at the studio. Sinead came on and argued that abuse in families was coded in by the church because it refused to accept the accounts of women and children,” says Kennedy.

But O’Connor’s intervention was not all that pleased her that night. For Kennedy, herself from Irish Catholic stock, the real merit of the programme was the way the abuse scandals led into a wider debate, and a bigger picture of the social changes taking place in Ireland at the time, which were challenging teaching on contraception and divorce, and the traditional deference to the church. “It was more than a discussion of child sex abuse,” she says. “You could see a new Ireland coming into being.”^[101]

[edit] Lethal Justice

The Glasgow Herald wrote of the After Dark special broadcast on 17th August 1995:

The debate on judicial murder looked to be going nowhere. Positions were settled, opinions fixed. A defence lawyer, a policeman, a psychologist, a convicted murderer and a victim's widow were arrayed before us, each saying exactly what was expected of them. Then a fat, smiling American spoke. This was Don Cabana, a professor of Criminal Justice from Mississippi but once a prison governor and once, indeed, an executioner. Quietly, and with some effort, he described exactly what happens when cyanide is released into the chamber, when the gas touches the skin, when the convulsions and the soiling begins, and how it all affects those whose job it is to carry out the orders of the state...It was a simple, unvarnished account, and the most riveting piece of television this week.^[102]

[edit] Other notable programmes

In 2003 the following After Dark programmes were highlighted in an article in the Radio Times:

One show was plunged into darkness by a power cut. The guests carried on talking during the blackout.

Twelve-year-old child prodigy James Harries took on a whole panel of teachers - and wiped the floor with them.

Mary Whitehouse was told by a female pensioner: "What women want is a Mars bar and a bottle of gin."

The guest who consumed the most alcohol was philosopher AJ Ayer. "He had been through the best part of a bottle of Scotch, but he was still brilliant"^[103]

[edit] BBC series

In January 2003, The Guardian wrote:

"After Dark, the open-ended discussion programme that gave its guests free rein to ruminate or ramble - depending on how much alcohol they had consumed - is to make a comeback on BBC Four. The television programme, which is best known for being taken off the air when the actor Oliver Reed drunkenly tried to kiss the American feminist Kate Millett after an argument about male violence, will return unchanged from February 22. "After Dark is one of the great television talk formats of all time - it was careless of Channel 4 to have let it go", said the BBCFour controller, Roly Keating. The programme allowed its guests to talk entirely freely. They were allowed to drink, if they wanted, and the programme ended only when they ran out of things to say.

It produced some memorable television moments: John Sutcliffe, father of the Yorkshire Ripper, was able to give a considered view of his son's behaviour; General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, a former commander of British forces in Northern Ireland, swapped anecdotes with Bernadette Devlin; and arms dealer Joey Martyn-Martin claimed Mark Thatcher was a beneficiary of the international weapons trade.

However, the show was dropped from its regular Saturday night slot in 1991 by the then Channel 4 chief executive, Michael Grade. His decision prompted a campaign by more than 100 public figures, from an astronaut to a zoologist, to save the programme. It returned the following year for occasional specials until its final demise in 1997.

The BBC Four version will remain unchanged in format, and will be made by the original producer...: "After Dark is a unique combination of a genuinely live programme, not on a delay of two hours like Question Time or five minutes like a radio programme. There is no studio audience, so the participants are under no obligation to exhibit themselves. There is no celebrity host who has to make himself look good. And, most important of all, it is open-ended, which shifts the power from the broadcaster and the producers to the participants." He predicted that the programme could seem even more unusual now, in the age of slick and formatted television."^[104]

[edit] Tom O'Carroll

In March 2003 After Dark gave airtime to a self-confessed paedophile. The Guardian described the show:

Tom O'Carroll...argues that sex with children is not harmful...The 56-year-old is Ireland's most notorious paedophile. He moved to Lemington Spa in 1972 where he established the Paedophile Information Exchange. Since its formation, the organisation has called for the open discussion of paedophilia and the abolition of laws against consensual sexual acts between children and adults. And the "boy lover" - as he calls himself - has addressed international conferences across the globe and written a book justifying the behaviour of those who prey on children. Mr O'Carroll and five other members of the exchange were convicted for "conspiring to corrupt public morals" in the 1980s by publishing a magazine advocating sex with children. He joined the After Dark panel for a discussion on paedophilia and child protection. Also on the panel were high profile child protection campaigner Esther Rantzen, lawyer Helena Kennedy QC, a former abuse victim, a criminologist, a solicitor and two academics. The BBC defended the decision to give a platform to Mr O'Carroll, saying he was invited on as part of a legitimate discussion about a topical issue.^[105]

[edit] Channel 4 at 25

In October 2007, as part of its 25-year anniversary celebrations, Channel 4 repeated the first ever After Dark (see [15]) on their More4 channel^[106], billing it as Anthony Wilson hosts a discussion concerning secrets - both secrets of the State and the personal secrets we keep from one another^[107]. Full credits for this edition of the programme are listed here: [16]

[edit] Cultural references

• After Dark featured in Biff cartoons, such as this one from The Guardian in 1988.

• After Dark was parodied on a regular basis by the BBC1 comedy series Alas Smith and Jones as "After Closing Time"^[108].

• The comic writer William Donaldson ran a column in The Independent newspaper about attempts made by After Dark staff to contact him (they "didn't know me from a hole in the road and merely wanted Janie Jones's number")^[109]

• Following Oliver Reed's appearance on After Dark, Viz magazine ran a strip where Roger Mellie behaved in a similar fashion.

[edit] See also

• List of After Dark editions
• Open Media

[edit] External sources

• Production company's list of all guests, hosts, programme titles and dates
• Selected press comment
• Credits of the first After Dark programme (from IMDB)
• TV listings showing the first After Dark (May 1987)
• Article from 'The Guardian' about Tony Wilson hosting After Dark
• Article from 'The Guardian' on the 1991 axing of After Dark
• Article from 'The Guardian' on the 2003 BBC relaunch
• Article by Helena Kennedy about hosting After Dark (includes her account of the Oliver Reed show and other memorable programmes, 'The Guardian', February 17, 2003)
• Interview with Helena Kennedy (launching a new series of After Dark, 'The Sunday Times', February 23, 2003)

[edit] References