''The Girlie Show'' is a British television programme that aired on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

from 26 January 1996 to 28 February 1997. Its presenters were

Sarah Cawood Sarah Louise Cawood (born 7 August 1972 in St Pancras, London) is an English broadcaster, best known for presenting the BBC Children's Saturday flagship morning show ''Live & Kicking''. Career Cawood grew up in the Cambridgeshire village of ...

Claire Gorham Claire Gorham (born 1967), sometimes credited as Clare Gorham, is an English journalist and television presenter. She is best known for presenting '' The Girlie Show'' in the 1990s. She is a transracial adoptee, born to a Swiss mother and a Nige ...

, American model

Rachel Williams Rachel Williams (born April 29, 1967) is an American model, TV presenter, and landscape designer. Early life Williams is the daughter of architect Tod Williams and Patricia Agnes Jones, a dancer. Her parents divorced when she was five years ...

and, in her first presenting job,

Sara Cox Sara Joanne Cyzer (née Cox; born 13 December 1974) is an English broadcaster. She presented ''Radio 1 Breakfast'' on BBC Radio 1 from 3 April 2000 until 19 December 2003. Since January 2019 she now hosts the BBC Radio 2 drivetime show, Monday ...

. The programme ran for two series in 1996 and 1997.

Format

Its magazine format allowed for interviews, live music, features, and stunts involving studio guests and the live audience. Originally broadcast in the old '' The Word'' time slot of 11 pm on a Friday night, ''The Girlie Show'' later occupied Channel 4's traditional 'post-pub' time slot. As with ''The Word'', the late-night scheduling meant guests and presenters encouraged each other to be controversial. In the tradition of ''The Word'', the show's content and its presenters were heavily hyped as being more edgy, dangerous and 'ballsy' than other programmes on British television. The show also featured a group of four "Twentysomething" males from Sunderland in the north-east of England called "

The Naked Ape ''The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal'' is a 1967 book by English Zoology, zoologist and ethology, ethologist Desmond Morris that looks at humans as a species and compares them to other animals. ''The Human Zoo (book), The Hu ...

s" (named after the book by

Desmond Morris Desmond John Morris FLS ''hon. caus.'' (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book '' The Naked Ape'', and for his televis ...

of the same name). The four were filmed each week in a variety of situations including a trip to Amsterdam, trying to pick up women in a gay nightclub, and going to the greyhound races dressed up as the "

Reservoir Dogs ''Reservoir Dogs'' is a 1992 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward B ...

". This was an early format for what would later become " reality TV", and showed what " lads" got up to when they hung out together. The group gained notoriety due to continued scenes of drinking and their attitudes towards life and women. Another regular feature of the show was 'Wanker of the Week', in which a celebrity who had done or said something during that particular week that made them worthy of the title. Recipients included

Naomi Campbell Naomi Elaine Campbell (born 22 May 1970) is an English model, actress, singer, and businesswoman. She began her career at the age of 15, and established herself amongst the most recognisable and in-demand models of the past four decades. Cam ...

and

Jimmy Nail James Michael Aloysius Bradford (born 16 March 1954), known as Jimmy Nail, is an English singer-songwriter, actor, film producer, and television writer. He played the role of Leonard "Oz" Osborne in the television show '' Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'' ...

. The series was notable for being the first to feature the girl group Spice Girls. There was considerable tabloid backlash against the show due to its often amateurish production standards - the presenters had little experience of live television. It was similarly castigated in the broadsheets as 'witless'. Although the intention of the producers was to cash in on the

Girl Power Girl power is a slogan that encourages and celebrates women's empowerment, independence, confidence and strength. The slogan's invention is credited to the US punk band Bikini Kill, who published a zine called ''Bikini Kill #2: Girl Power'' i ...

and

ladette Lad culture (also the new lad, laddism) was a media-driven, principally British and Irish subculture of the 1990s and early 2000s. The image of the "lad"—or "new lad"—was that of a generally middle class figure espousing attitudes typically at ...

phenomena, feminist commentators complained that the show's style and content appealed to male chauvinistic stereotypes. Several so-called practical jokes on members of the audience were also clearly staged. Channel 4 subsequently placed the show at number 80 in its ''

100 Greatest TV Moments from Hell 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...

'' list.

References

External links

* 1996 British television series debuts 1997 British television series endings Girlie Show, The English-language television shows {{UK-tv-prog-stub