I missed Later With Jools Holland on the television the other night.

However I did catch it in a studio at BBC Television Centre on Tuesday 9th November along with two hundred or so other eager punters. Having written a few reviews of the show on here I was contacted via the Word blog a couple of weeks ago by lovelyian (yes, he is Ian and he is lovely): would I like to be a guest on Later?

My initial thoughts were, but I haven't got an album to plug and besides I haven't sung live since playing "The King" in a high school production of the aforementioned "and I". Is Later really that short of musical acts to book for the show? Do they really want me to plug a gap between Jools' natter with an ageing rocker and the next song from the flavour of the month? I'll need to restring my guitar and unbend my favourite plectrum, perhaps invest in a new pair of c(h)ords. This is crazy! What is lovelyian thinking? I'll be the laughing stock of TV Land and lovelyian will be renamed sillyian for imagining I'd agree to appear so low down the pecking order: a song at the start and one at the end or it's no deal!

Then it dawned on me. I was being asked to be an audience guest. Just as well, I thought, the plectrum won't unbend. I was also told I could take "+1". "+1"? Was I being allocated hit points? Were we playing Dungeons and Dragons backstage with Jools and the production crew? I'd have to dig out my Rush albums and remind myself of the rules but if it got me into the studio it would be churlish to refuse.

A quick reality check and I realised I could take a guest. Thus I was accompanied by fellow Massive member, Beany, a man with many, many tales to tell including one in particular that can only be described as A Grand Love Story. You'll have to share a pint or 3 with the man himself to warm your heart and soul to that one.

I won't bore you with the details of check-in process (like the airport but with less bags and no duty free) or of the Audience Reception area (like a leisure centre cafe but clean) or of the corridors we walked down (like a rabbit warren for The Big People) or of the other audience members (like me, but slimmer) but I'll try and give you a flavour of the recording itself.

Later is television's version of audience participation "theatre in the round". The director Peter Brook talked of the difference between audience and performer as being merely one of practicality rather than of something fundamental. The practicalities of Later in televisual terms are that the viewer at home wants to see the acts perform and that the show has an alloted amount of time and a broadcasting schedule to adhere to but the practicalities of the show in theatre terms is that the studo audience is an integral part of helping the performers to perform. I also think that the audience is there to keep everyone on their toes, to keep everyone - presenter, crew, interviewees, the acts - "switched on" so no-one at home switches off.

In physical terms the theatre in the round concept is actually an octagon, with 3 sides of that octagon the audience and the remaining sides the performers. But even that isn't strictly adhered to as the intimate performance of Jessie J and the hyperactive walkabout of Tinie Tempah and co. attest. It was the latter's performance of Pass Out that nailed the wonder of the theatricality of the show for an audience member. His performance made me realise why so many individual winners at award ceremonies feel compelled to accept the award on behalf of a team, a group of people whose role is to capture whatever is there in the performance and who, if they're lucky, will occasionally trap lightning in a bottle: the moment when all the elements of the televisual process come together to create a moment of magic.

I don't know if any part of Tuesday's live show had such a moment as I have yet to watch it. But it would not be for a lack of trying on the part of the production crew. The logistics are astonishing to contemplate. You see nothing on the television but behind whatever camera is 'live' there are more cameras and other technical gadgets and up to 10 people working the centre of "the round" all focussing their efforts on delivering what you see and hear at home.

During Tinie Tempah's performance of Pass Out the production crew moved the floor like a series of seemingly random but obviously interconnected vortices, the epicentre of which was the elfin girl who had to move the thick wires of the hand-held camera that trailed Tinie like his ADHD afflicted siamese twin. Her role was simple but vital, to ensure neither Tinie, the cameraman himself nor the remaining wheel-based cameras and production crew tripped over those wires. If anyone needed animal instinct and a sixth sense it was that girl. She moved with grace and speed, her role a spotlight performance that no one sees but which, if she failed to perform, could bring everything down around her like a pack of cards; all that hard work to capture quicksand in a bottle.

Thus as an audience member you are treated to two performances, those of the artists and those of the production crew. It is a fascinating mix, made compelling by virtue of neither performance ever unduly affecting or encroaching upon the other. That in itself is the magic of being in the studio: if you go to the studio to watch the way you do at home you'll miss it. In fact, the only obvious technical hitch came from one of Bryan Ferry's guitarist's pedals which screeched momentarily during the frontman's interview with Jools for Friday's show. Perhaps it was The Eno Ghost of Roxy Past.

I know Later attracts some heavy criticism but it serves a purpose in a media world driven by priorities that often seem to be set completely independently of the content itself. That's why Top Of The Pops failed: people decided to mess about with the format because they were driven by objectives and business plans that forgot what it was that made the programme work in the first place. Later is an exception to the way many music shows are made these days in that it is primarily there to serve music for music lovers or perhaps more accurately, it is there to serve music to people who have an opinion about music: that's why it attracts so much criticism. If Later serves up Bryan Ferry and Tinie Tempah in the same show it's easy to be cynical and claim that it's chasing after a demographic but the truth of the matter is that from where I was standing Tinie Tempah's Pass Out was far and away the stand-out performance. And I was looking forward to Midlake more than any other act on the show. What's my demographic in that scenario?

I now realise that Later's format works because the performance is both the acts who play their music and the production crew who capture it. Thus as a music lover and someone who has an opinion about music Later gives me, week in and week out, the chance to consider what I like about music and about the act without all the distractions and side-shows of videos, jingles, edited dialogue and PR controlled access and contrived scene-setting. The acts have to leave their entourage and safety-nets at the studio door and enter the theatre in the round with only their talent to protect them. And that is why Later is the only TV music show that has any chance of capturing some lightning in a bottle. How often it does so is irrelevant because the truth is that everyone involved with the show seems to be driven by the belief that it can happen. My claim to that being "the truth" is simple: I was lucky to be there and watch the show being made without the artifice of a TV set.