The anarchy and ecstasy that was The Tube - The Tube - Twenty Years On (ITV)

THE Tube ran for just five years in the 1980s, a relatively brief TV life but one that had a huge effect on music shows on the box. The show was a big risk as it relied on enticing performers away from the capital to spend Friday nights in Newcastle in Studio 5 at Tyne Tees Television's base in City Road. This programme - shown in the North-East last week and on the ITV network last night - attempted to account for its popularity and influence using snippets from the archives and fresh comments from those closely involved in the show.

"Stay tuned for the biggest party on TV," announced Barry Humphries in one clip. And that, of course, was a big part of The Tube's attraction. It didn't stick to a formula like Top Of The Pops. The show was live and dangerous. "It's been total confusion this week and will be next week," presenter Jools Holland admitted at the end of one programme.

Today he looks back and says it was like the lunatics taking over the asylum. Anything could happen, and frequently did. Every time a performer let slip a four-letter word, the watchdogs wagged their finger at the producers and told them not to do it again. Director Gavin Taylor knew that if bad behaviour had resulted in The Tube being recorded, it would have been the death of the show.

"It was great because it was irreverent and had no boundaries," said singer Paul Young, the only act to do two consecutive weeks on the show. His was one of the careers boosted by The Tube. Others, like Tina Turner, saw careers revived after appearing.

The archives were raided for clips from "the dismissed decade in the history of rock and roll". The brevity of this celebration programme was a reminder that there must be hours and hours of fascinating material of now-famous and once-famous acts waiting to be shown again.

As well as recalling the contribution of Holland and his co-presenter Paula Yates to The Tube's unique style, the programme pointed out that alternative comedy made up 30 per cent of the show. That's something that's largely forgotten. There was Vic Reeves dangling on a wire hosting a quiz show called Square Celebrities, Rik Mayall vomiting before introducing the start of the show, and French and Saunders in their early days. It was interesting to see how many of these alternative comics of the 1980s are now part of the establishment.

Teenage kicks

A Slice Of Saturday Night, Durham Gala Theatre

REMEMBER those multi-stack portable record players from the 1960s and 1970s? When more than one vinyl 45 dropped at the same time you got the slipping needle effect of too many singles trying to play at a similar moment. Initially, that's what this cheeky musical-cum-drama is like. Your ears strain for the familiar sound of The Beatles, Billy Fury and Sonny and Cher, but the reality is a clever pop parody created by, and featuring, the Heather Brothers band. Ironically, no one on stage, including headliner Norman Pace, seems actually old enough to really remember being 17 in 1964. These days you have to be 55 plus to recall those first Saturday night stirrings of sexual arousal at the Club A-Go-Go. Pace plays club owner Eric Rubber Legs Le-vene in an ill-fitting dinner jacket as the hard man with a heart of gold. His wide boy act even survives an invitation to "I'm a Geordie" Alf, from the audience, to take part in Eric's Hokey-Cokey Shuffle on stage.

"What can we do to entertain you?" quips Eric. "Put the lights down and give us one of your girls," comes the rapier response from a 55-plus brigade member. The girls in question, Sandra Huggett, Laurie Hagen, Emily Dormer and Victoria Leigh, need a beehive or two and panda-eyed make-up to truly catch the spirit of the 1960s nights. Jonathan Ball, Peter Hillier and impressive singer Terry Burns feature as the lads desperate for a little pash in the alley behind the club. Slice brings back memories of poignancy and that long walk across the dance floor to ask a girl to dance... and the longer walk back if she said no. Nostalgia was always a fling of the past.

Viv Hardwick

* A Slice Of Saturday runs until Saturday. Evenings at 7.30pm. Saturday at 6pm and 9pm. Tickets: £15.50.

The show transfers to York's Grand Opera House next week (Nov 18-23). Box Office: (01904) 671818