UK Late is a Channel 4 television series broadcast in 1987. Before it was launched it was described by the Dublin Evening Herald as "a dozen people will take centre stage of a London night-club to entertain an invited audience and bring all that is best in an after-dinner discussion or bar-room debate to the screen".Evening Herald, Dublin, 17 July 1987 A couple of weeks later The Listener magazine described it as "a fairly disastrous attempt at a hybrid, a thematic discussion rather than a chat show".The Listener, 30 July 1987
The anchors were journalist John Lloyd and commentator Mary Harron. The television critic of The Times Literary Supplement reviewed it as follows: "I am not sure what has happened to the spirit of the Sixties, but the corpse is currently being trundled around the television studios. Channel 4’s new late-night talk show, UK Late (July 17), consigned it to a circle of hell superficially disguised as a salon from an existentialist play."TLS, Personal column', 24 July 1987
Nancy Banks-Smith, a regular television reviewer for The Guardian wrote: "It was like coming back from the holidays to find the burglars had been...After Dark, Channel 4's attractive small hours talk-show, had been succeeded by UK Late...a brawl with an audience."'Slug-out after dark', Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 20 July 1987
A later edition was reviewed by the Sunday Independent in Dublin as "This week it was 'What Happened To Sex'. There were gays, professors, counsellors and of course Deborah, the stripper...to discuss, over a table littered with empty glasses, our and their hang-ups. Even after a few pints it was boring".Sunday Independent, Dublin, 16 August 1987
The director was Bob Marsland, the producer Lino Ferrari and the production company Panoptic.Programme credits, University of Glasgow TFTS archive There was no second series.
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