Central Weekend - The Show

The Show

The show was broadcast live from the Central Television studios on Broad Street, Birmingham, although it was later moved to the Nottingham studios at Lenton Lane. It became a popular highlight of the week's television in the Midlands region and enjoyed a 40% share of the viewing audience. Confrontational from the outset, debates could become quite heated and audience members sometimes had to be restrained by on-set bouncers. However, on at least one occasion, the show's floor manager was assaulted by one of the returning guests.

During a debate on women's football in March 1998, an audience member got drunk and ran amok on set, forcing the show to be taken off the air. 44-year-old Robert Davy was later jailed for 12 months over the incident. On another occasion, during the 1992 General Election campaign, Conservative MP Edwina Currie poured a glass of orange juice over Labour's Peter Snape shortly after an edition of the show had finished airing. Speaking about the incident later, Currie said "I just looked at my orange juice, and looked at this man from which this stream of abuse was emanating, and thought 'I know how to shut you up.' ".

In 2001, a complaint was made to the Independent Television Commission after it emerged that an edition of the show had featured fake guests. A debate on the effects of soap operas on the lives of individuals had featured two patients of a "soap clinic", who it later emerged had been fakes.