Fans of the classic 80s

In terms of expense and airtime alone, Club X turned out to be one of Channel 4’s biggest disasters. Attempting to marry pop culture with contemporary art in as ambitious a manner as possible, both Charlie Parsons – its editor – and C4 fatally overreached themselves. In an intriguing interpretation of focus groups, Parsons cited the English National Opera – "it’s packed with 16 to 23-year-olds!"- as proof that "there is a young arts educated audience to be catered for. By putting the fun back into art Club X is more than equipped to extend this audience even further." But there was nothing fun about Club X. Each edition lasted a sprawling 90 minutes; the plethora of features never gelled; its lofty pretentiousness clashed with its often somewhat seedy content; and chief presenter Murray Boland struggled gamely to link it all together against a studio background of deafening noise and crowds wandering all over the place. Unbelievably, it was initially repeated on Sunday afternoons at 2pm – until protests about sketches poking fun at Dickie Valentine and Eric Morecambe woke C4 up to just what was going on. A second series was never commissioned; out of the ruins, though, emerged The Word and youth TV for the 1990s.