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''After Dark'' is a British late-night live discussion programme broadcast on Channel 4 television between 1987 and 1997, and on the BBC in 2003. Roly Keating of the BBC described it as "one of the great television talk formats of all time"〔''Broadcast'' magazine, 28 January 2003〕 and the ''Daily Mail'' as "the most intelligent, thought-provoking and interesting programme ever to have been on television".〔Jaci Stephen, ''Daily Mail'', 9 May 1997〕 In 2010 the television trade magazine ''Broadcast'' wrote "''After Dark'' defined the first 10 years of Channel 4, just as ''Big Brother'' did for the second".〔''Broadcast'' magazine, 4 March 2010〕 Broadcast live and with no scheduled end time, the series, inspired by an Austrian programme called ''Club 2'',〔see ''Club 2'' in German Wikipedia〕 was considered to be a groundbreaking reinvention of the discussion programme format. The programme was hosted by a variety of presenters, and each episode had around half a dozen guests, often including a member of the public. Guests would be selected to provoke lively discussion, and memorable conversations included footballer Garth Crooks disputing the future of the game with politician Sir Rhodes Boyson, MP Teresa Gorman walking out of a discussion about unemployment with Billy Bragg, and Oliver Reed drunkenly kissing Kate Millett during a programme that asked "Do Men Have To Be Violent?". The show ended in 1991 but a number of one-off specials and a BBC revival followed. In 2004 ''After Dark'' was characterised as "legendary" by the Open University〔(News release ) by the Open University, accessed 4 June 2014〕 and in 2014 as "the most uncensorable programme in the history of British television".〔(Programme notes ) for the academic conference, ''1984: Where Are We Now?'', held 23 April 2014〕 ==Start on Channel 4== Jeremy Isaacs, the founding Chief Executive of Channel 4, wrote an account of the network's early years in his book ''Storm Over 4''. In it he selects twenty-six programmes ('a very personal... choice'), including ''After Dark'', which he describes as follows: :"Open-ended talk. Lifted by an astute producer... from Austria's ''Club 2'', it began at midnight and went on till it finished. The aim, discussion between people with burning experience of the subject; e.g., the murderer and the judge. A participant might wait long to utter but in the end his turn came. Viewers could fall asleep in front of it, wake up and find the discussion just hotting up."〔Jeremy Isaacs, ''Storm Over 4'', Weidenfeld & Nicholson, UK, 1989〕 The programme allowed Isaacs to realise one of his longest-held ambitions. "When I first started in television at Granada... Sidney Bernstein said to me that the worst words ever uttered on TV were, I'm sorry, that's all we have time for. Especially since they were always uttered just as someone was about to say something really interesting." ''After Dark'' would only end when its guests had nothing more to say.〔'The talk-masters of television', ''The Independent'', 7 June 1989〕 From late April in 1987, Channel 4 screened a ''Nighttime'' strand, a mixture of films and discussion programmes that ran until 3am on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.〔 Channel 4 launched ''After Dark'' as an open ended format broadcast on Friday nights (later Saturday nights) as an original piece of programming that would be inexpensive to produce. There was no 'chair', simply a 'host', and the discussion took place around a coffee table in a darkened studio. Due to its late-night scheduling the series was dubbed ''After Closing Time'' by one critic. The series was made by production company Open Media. The series editor, Sebastian Cody, talking about the programme in an interview in 2003, said that "Reality TV is artificial. ''After Dark'' is real in the sense that what you see is what you get, which isn't the case with something that's been edited to give the illusion of being real. Other shows wind people up with booze beforehand, then when they're actually on the programme they give them glasses of water. We give our guests nothing until they arrive on set and then they can drink orange juice, or have a bottle of wine. And we let them go to the loo."〔'BBC Four to resurrect After Dark', ''Guardian Unlimited'', 28 January 2003 ()〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「After Dark (TV series)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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