A Sword in the Darkness: Why Channel 4 should bring back After Dark
Towards the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s a televised topical debate show existed that broke all existing rules and conventions. There has been nothing like it ever since.
There was no studio audience; debates between a panel of seven guests took place on a dark set with nothing visible to the people watching on television besides the guests and a table. The program had no scheduled end time; broadcast would begin late in the evening and cease only when there was nothing left for the guests to say. The show would often run into the early hours of the following morning if necessary.
An impartial presenter would oversee the debate but act as a facilitator rather than a moderator, helping to get the discussion going but keeping interference to a minimum. Guests included scientists, politicians, journalists, celebrities as well as occasional members of the public with an interest or experience related to the subject under discussion. All were allowed to smoke and drink as much they pleased during broadcast.
Topics were occasionally related to news and current affairs, other times the debate would be on something more abstract such as a set of beliefs, a philosophy or political ideology. For however long each episode lasted the guests were encouraged to say what they thought, provoke and argue safe in the knowledge that there would be little distraction or attempted distortion of their views. This often led to fiery discussions between obvious foes but also moments of clarity and insightfulness as opinions and deeply held beliefs were exposed and challenged.
It is hard to imagine such a radical concept even being proposed by a television company today but for a decade Channel 4’s After Dark made its modern-day equivalents seem drab in comparison. There is little appetite for pushing boundaries amongst the formulaic debate shows of today especially in an era where censorship is common and to be provocative and stray from consensus is deemed unfashionable at best. Even programs that offer a debate on an interesting topic with a lively panel of guests are hampered by a strict time limit that prevents any proper discussion from taking place and often ruined by interjections from an overactive and partial studio audience or presenter.
After Dark’s groundbreaking concept led to some memorable and controversial moments and the topic of debate as well as the invited guests were deliberately chosen to be provocative. Since its inception Channel 4 was considered Britain’s most radical TV channel: its purpose was to break with orthodoxy and challenge consensus. Throughout its tenure After Dark stayed true to the channel’s rebellious tradition and after watching the very limited number of old episodes currently available online it is clear that the series is still relevant more than twenty years after the series officially ended. For these reasons an article in a 2020 edition of The Guardian rightly described it as, “...one of the jewels in the history of television (because) it offered a thing that’s now extinct: constructive debate.”
There were many landmark episodes. Topics of debate included Apartheid era South Africa which included on the panel Denis Woral, a white representative from the pro segregationist government, singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte and Ismail Ayob, the lawyer of Nelson Mandela who at the time was still in prison. Another episode involved an intimate discussion concerning the nature of the Official Secrets Act and the effect it would have on civil rights and government accountability once implemented, which included several ex-intelligence officers and Labour politician, Tony Benn. As the Act would not become enshrined in law until a few weeks after broadcast the panel were able to discuss and disclose information relating to corruption in the intelligence services in a way that would later become illegal once the Act passed through parliament.
On one occasion the panel included infamous revisionist historian David Irving, a Hitler apologist that believes the Holocaust never took place. The topic under discussion was the life of Winston Churchill and Irving spoke disparagingly of the wartime PM in front of Anthony Montague Brown, a close friend of Churchill’s and his former private secretary. Though there was obvious animosity between the pair, it was nothing compared with the tension between fellow guests Quintin Hogg, a Tory MP and Trade Unionist Jack Jones who argued incessantly throughout.
One episode of the show’s first season took place after the 1987 general election which saw Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives returned to office for a third term. The title of the program was Is Britain Working and the panel of guests which included singer and left-wing activist Billy Bragg and a recently elected Tory MP Tessa Gorman discussed the issue of Thatcherism and unemployment. The animosity between Bragg and Gorman fizzled throughout the discussion and led to the latter storming off the set, a moment captured live by the cameras that always rolled constantly throughout the broadcast.
Indeed cameras would only cease rolling for momentary ad breaks. There was virtually no censorship: the shows commitment to free speech meant that even those with repugnant and offensive views were allowed express their opinions and, crucially, have them exposed and challenged by the other guests. A lawyer would be on hand to explain the potential legal ramifications should any comment appear libellous or defamatory but such remarks, if made, would still form part of the broadcast as lack of a time delay made censorious editing virtually impossible. The host would be notified through an ear piece if something legally questionable had been uttered and promptly remind viewers that these were solely the views of the individual guest and not that of Channel 4, ensuring the program did its best to stay within the law.
Alcohol was freely available on set which encouraged guests to become less guarded in their remarks and allowed the conversation to flow more freely. Some would drink moderately whilst others became quite severely intoxicated. It was said that philosopher AJ Ayer drank a whole bottle of whiskey during one episode whilst still managing to remain lucid and debate coherently. One famous incident also involved actor Oliver Reed appearing visibly drunk and behaving boorishly with feminist campaigner Kate Millet during an episode discussing the link between masculinity and violence. This was perhaps the one episode of After Dark which was briefly taken off air during a live broadcast thanks to a hoax call made to Channel 4 but the episode soon resumed having been off the air for no longer than twenty minutes.
The program’s originality, unique format and propensity for drama meant viewing figures were high, with much of the country captivated by After Dark’s unpredictability and the fact that the show would end only when each guest had had their say regardless of if this took until the early hours. One of the programme’s first hosts was the Manchester music pioneer Tony Wilson who accurately described the show’s appeal during one of its first broadcasts:
“After Dark is open ended. All the people here can go on talking until such times as they choose to stop talking. This will result – perhaps not tonight, perhaps tonight – in a chemistry which will make it worth you staying up into the after-dark hours.”
For these reasons After Dark remains one of the most ground breaking and compulsive talk shows ever conceived for television. There appears to be very little to compare it to in the modern era of television talk shows which is severely lacking in something that even closely resembles the audaciousness of Channel 4’s landmark show. At a time when debate has become more about mudslinging, point scoring and ad hominem between people that seem more intent on discrediting or censoring their opponents rather than arguing and discussing a point of view coherently, surely it is time for After Dark or a program that has a similar format was re-commissioned, perhaps as an online podcast. At the very least Channel 4 should make the entire back catalogue of After Dark, or at least several landmark episodes, available via its online streaming service so that we can marvel at what civilised, thought provoking and memorable debates once were and continue longing for their return.
-Tony Wilson was quoted from Tony Wilson: You’re Entitled to an Opinion (David Nolan,2010)
-The article from The Guardian is from the 18/4/20 edition and is by Jack Seale.
-Thank you to Laura Cook from Open Media for the kind words and corrections.