To celebrate doing roughly 100 editions of the Late Zone, today’s stream is as if a Late Zone burst its banks and flooded the Show.
Peculiar late night obsessions come to the fore in the Late Zone, mainly revolving around mini documentaries from yesteryear, technology, music, animation and computer graphics, and quirky late-night comedy and entertainment shows.
15:00 – The Chart Show
\ A special afternoon bonus item – an almost-complete edition of presenter-free music video programme The Chart Show, from its very first year (1986) when it was on Channel 4.
16:05 – Library mix
\ Anti-inflammatory funk compiled for pharamceutical company Bayer in the 1970s, accompanied by scenes from New York… in the 1970s.
16:20 – Odd One Out
\ Paul Daniels glues on ridiculous wig Mk.I and goes all high-pitched at John and Jane Q. Citizen, in this low-money quiz show which happens to have an unbeatable title sequence and theme tune combination.
16:55 – Bad Influence!
\ Zee Wright reports from inside silicon hell while Andy Crane checks out the latest sperm bank sim on the Amiga, probably.
17:20 – Attachments
\ I don’t normally do hate-watches, but this has been tempting me for ages. Attachments was reportedly made by the team that brought you This Life, which you didn’t ask for either. Imagine the flimsy aspirational wankerdom of This Life combined with the HOT SEXY world of WEB 1.0 DESIGN. From a cursory check, it seems to average at least one “aahhh, wankers!” moment per minute. Warning: Walliams.
18:10 – Monty Python and the Holy Grail – Location report
\ A charming documentary made for BBC’s Film Night in 1975, capturing the highjinks and sodden underpants experienced on location in the making of Monty Python’s first narrative feature film.
18:40 – FILM: Synthetic Pleasures (1995)
\ Documentary film from the same director as Modulations (shown on the Show #27). An ‘electronic road movie’ considering the implications of the mid-90s techno-landscape – virtual reality, the information superhighway, and other reality-altering technologies. Should form a very heady whiff of stylish 90s net-headed misguidedness. Mondo 2000-licious.
20:10 – The Thick Of It
\ The parties go toe-to-toe – rival MPs Nicola Murray and Peter Mannion do battle on Richard Bacon’s Radio 5 Live phone-in show, their communications directors have a dick-swinging competition in the corridor, and Ollie and Emma’s inter-party romance goes to shit.
20:40 – This Week: A Better View?
\ Thames news documentary from 1988 on the looming launch of satellite television in the UK and its ramfications for British TV. (Spoiler: they showed cheap American shit and adverts.)
21:00 – Banzai!
\ Another episode of the early-E4 comedy betting show, stylised as a Japanese programme but with peculiarly British obsessions.
21:30 – The Truth About Lies: The Tube Is Reality
\ One of those documentaries that C4 used to do so well – from 1991, it covers the idea of truth as seen through the lens of American television.
22:35 – Metro-Land
\ One for the Late Zoners and trainiacs – atmospheric 1973 film with John Betjeman, a celebration of suburban life to the northwest of London in the inter-war years, which grew up around the Metropolitan Railway.
23:25 – Adam and Joe Go Tokyo
\ Final instalment of the BBC Three series from 2003 – Adam & Joe host a wry round-up of Japanese culture, fads and phenomena from their studio in Tokyo.
23:55 – The End Of An Era
\ A surprisingly groovy 1970 film showing the modernisation of British Telecom exchanges that was happening at the time. Deep Late Zone.
00:10 – The Future Sound Of London – Teachings From The Electronic Brain
\ Late-night audio-visual feast made by FSOL for MTV in 1996, made to promote the Dead Cities album.
00:50 – IBA Engineering Announcements
\ It wouldn’t be a Late Zone without the girls and boys from Crawley Court giving us an update on the Cefn Mawr transmitter.
Loads of bonus music, A/V and comedy flim-flam throughout