Club X
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Club X is a short-lived 1989 Channel 4 arts and music magazine programme that is often cited as an example of TV Hell.[1]
Details
The production and presentation team was largely taken from the earlier Channel 4 success
The Club X format was intended to blend items on relatively high-brow arts with the kind of quirky stories and items that had been features of Network 7, such as feminist pornography. Club X was broadcast live over 23 weeks during Summer 1989 in a Wednesday night 90-minute slot scheduled directly against BBC2's new arts magazine
Fortunately the show's presenters led by
Buygones
Club X was the first television work of Victor Lewis-Smith whose stand-alone segment Buygones featured humorous takes on withdrawn consumer items such as the Aztec Bar and OMO washing powder.
Cancellation
An edited version of the Wednesday broadcast was shown at 14:00 the following Sunday. Although the edited version tidied up the presentation and removed the more graphic elements, the content remained the same and an off-colour remark about the dead comedian Eric Morecambe drew complaints. A second series was not commissioned; as Channel 4 had, unusually, produced the series in-house, the channel bore the full cost. This made it one of the most expensive failures in the company's history. Some elements such as 'Buygones' were recycled as stand-alone programmes or greatest hits compilations. Charlie Parsons went on to set up a production company with Waheed Ali, which then merged with Planet Pictures, which subsequently produced several shows including The Big Breakfast and "The Word".
References
- ^ a b c Stuart Jeffries (26 April 2019). "From Shafted to Club X: The TV Shows so shocking they were taken off-air". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
- "Art Goes pop". The Daily Telegraph. 22 April 1989.
- "Everybody needs culture". The Guardian. 27 April 1989.
- "Creative emotion". The Observer. 23 April 1989.