YouTube Pick: In Bed with Chris Needham (1992)

Loughborough's premier 'heavy metal philosopher' invites us into his world

Seeing as it’s a rainy, dull and cold Saturday (which is actually my idea of heaven), I decided to rustle something up to entertain those of you who don’t delight in going out and splashing around in the cold. And what could be more entertaining than getting In Bed with Chris Needham?

Part of the Teenage Diaries series, In Bed with Chris Needham first aired on BBC2 in June 1992 and looked at the life of Chris Needham, a seventeen year old ‘heavy metal philosopher’ living in Loughborough who was attempting to take on the world with his band Manslaughter.

Self-filmed, seemingly with a standard camcorder, this video diary finds Needham rallying against the commercialism of Christmas, expressing his distaste for green campaigners (he has his own ideas on how to save the planet), hanging out in his bedroom with girlfriend Jane and taking part in a procession of discordant band practices.

And it’s hilarious, completely hilarious. The cocky self-delusions of youth are pushed to the fore (God knows, I’m glad I wasn’t asked to do a video diary when I was 17) and Needham comes across as a fully-fleshed sitcom character, although there’s also plenty of quiet introspection as Needham goes one-to-one with the camera.

It’s also fascinating, as always, to look at the lives of pre-internet teenagers. If In Bed with Chris Needham were to be made today, it would be a very different programme with, no doubt, our protagonist making social media a major part of advancing his views. Certainly, it would likely remain hilarious, but sometimes its nice to look back at a more analogue age and hold it up against the advances of modern technology.

A perfect way to spend just under an hour, make sure you climb In Bed with Chris Needham and escape the modern world for a bit.