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Club X was a 90-minute late-night magazine programme with a loose arts and
cultural agenda, aimed at a youthful audience. Edited by former NME
journalist Charlie Parsons, who brought with him much of the rough-and-ready
feel and visual style of the topical youth magazine Network 7 (Channel 4,
1987-88), on which he had been a producer, it was very much in the
tradition of the anarchic late-night offerings of Channel 4's earlier years,
such as Whatever You Want (1982-84), a tradition which later coalesced in The
Word (1990-95).
Deliberately courting controversy, it made headlines as much for its chaotic
presentation as for its content. The first edition was a disaster: under
rehearsed, badly lit and with faulty sound, it might have caused more of a stir
if anybody had been able to tell what was going on. The introduction of more
pre-recorded, independently produced segments to break up the live base of the
programme helped it to settle down a little, and regular providers of Channel 4
arts programming, such as After Image, supplied much of the content.
Probably the most memorable of the separately supplied elements was the
regular 'Buygones' segment, produced and narrated by idiosyncratic TV critic
Victor Lewis-Smith, which took a comic look at products from the past, including
old television logos, and was frequently in trouble on grounds of taste.
The live elements included discussions, bands, modern dance, live theatre and
artistic "happenings". One of the most talked about in this last category was
the recreation of Yves Klein's 1960 performance piece 'Anthropometry', featuring
nude female models painting with their bodies to a musical accompaniment.
This was part of a programme with body art as its theme; other themes included
prison and British national identity.
The main presenters were Murray Boland, Martine Attille and the incomparable Fou Fou L. Hunter, who personified the show's generally outrageous character.
Steve Bryant
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