How we made Eurotrash: ‘We’d look at all these strange kinks. It traumatised a generation’

Antoine de Caunes, presenter

In the late 80s, I was presenting a French music show called Rapido and Janet Street-Porter [then BBC2’s head of youth and entertainment] happened to see it. She said, “I want that on the BBC”, which was already kind of weird. A French guy to host a UK rock show, are you kidding? It was like asking a British chef to host a French cuisine programme. When Rapido came to an end after a few seasons, producer Peter Stuart and I were asked to pitch a weekly magazine show. Peter came up with Eurotrash, which was an attempt to reconcile Brits with the rest of Europe. We failed in that mission, I noticed!

I had been friends with Jean Paul Gaultier for years, so asked him to co-host. We had a flirtatious relationship on screen. That’s why I asked him to wear a kilt – to show off his big hairy legs and stay sexy. My English isn’t perfect but his was incredibly haphazard. He would read the autocue very carefully but we still had to do many takes. The show took ages to film because we were laughing so much. Imagine trying to keep a straight face when there’s a naked guy behind you, doing the helicopter with his dick. Or German cleaners in G-strings vacuuming the studio. Carla Bruni came to sit on my lap and answer silly questions. We were like a family of freaks, reuniting every week to make this bizarre nonsense show.

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Viewers enjoyed the way I pronounced certain phrases, especially “butt cheeks” and “dickhead”. There was a strong sex obsession. We’d look at all these strange kinks and subcultures. Sometimes it could be frightening, but by spending time with these people, you could tell their stories better. We tried not to make fun of them but make fun with them. We broadcast at 10.30pm, which was perfect because by that time, everyone in Britain is drunk and feeling much looser. Between 2 million and 3 million people watched. Usually for that slot, it was under a million.

These days you have to be so cautious but back then, there were no limits. There were lots of complaints but we loved being outrageous. It was like a window on the crazy world, which today you can access with a click. When I meet Brits aged between 30 and 50, they tell me, “We weren’t allowed to watch Eurotrash, we had to hide behind the sofa while our parents were watching.” It traumatised a whole generation in the UK.

The idea was to show you repressed Brits that there was some lightness, craziness and freedom on this cold, dark continent called Europe. You didn’t believe us, clearly.

Maria McErlane, narrator

I sent in a voice tape, then got called in to meet the producers. They showed me clips of people in various stages of undress and mental disarray. We discussed whether the narration should be straight or tongue-in-cheek. Obviously, I thought the latter. Eurotrash was a way of getting risque material on air with a cheeky postcard giggle. It was meant to titillate in a way that could still be on terrestrial TV. We all thought it would be cancelled within seconds, so were quite cavalier about it. I can’t believe we got away with it so long – 16 series and endless specials. It was a guilty pleasure. My agent at the time said, “We won’t put this on your CV, darling.”

Part of its appeal was the pace – a bit like another 90s show I did, The Fast Show. It was the MTV generation. You’d show just enough, then swiftly move on to something else. Each week, I’d go in and rattle through pages of voiceover script. Occasionally if I felt it was too “funny foreigner”, I’d ask to tone it down. It’s a fine line between teasing and xenophobia. The underlying tone was “Aren’t we great? We’re British and these weird people are in Europe.” At least back then, we were in Europe too. I mourn the day.

The tone of the narration has been much copied but imitation is the best form of flattery. The words “German” and “poo” haunt me still because there was an awful lot of that. Germans are very scatological. When I did my vocal warm-ups, it’d be: “Welcome to Eurotrash. Tonight we’ve got some Germans pooing, massive tits and a few penises.” It was all linked together by Antoine and Jean Paul, who had this rather camp relationship. Antoine was a mercurial creature. He did a political programme back in Paris and was very serious. He’d be reading Proust backstage but as soon as the red camera light came on, he’d turn into a comedy Frenchman: “’Ello my British chums!”

The internet was in its infancy when we started in 1993. We showed every orifice and crevice but it seems tame in relation to porn sites that are now a click away for 14-year-olds. Eurotrash was almost like University Challenge in comparison.

• Eurotrash is released Monday 26 September on DVD and digital from Network