Chris Morris (satirist): Difference between revisions

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Chris Morris in Brass Eye

Chris Morris (born June 15, 1962) is an English comedy writer, satirist and radio DJ.

Morris was born in Cambridgeshire; both his parents were doctors. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit boys' boarding school in Lancashire. He is a vegetarian and studied zoology at Bristol University.

Early Career

On graduating, Morris took up a traineeship with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, where he took advantage of the free access to editing and recording equipment to create elaborate spoofs and parodies. On leaving Radio Cambridgeshire he worked at BBC Radio Bristol and Greater London Radio (GLR). He was fired by Radio Bristol, with varying accounts claiming that he had either been excessively abusive to a caller or had talked (and possibly eaten) over a news broadcast. However, the legendary incident in which he supposedly released helium into a news studio was part of a prepared 'sketch' item and never led to a suspension or dismissal. Also, despite rumours to the contrary, he was never fired or suspended from GLR and continued to broadcast with the station sporadically until his television career took off.

In 1991 Morris largely gave up work as a mainstream disc-jockey and devoted himself to comedy with his radio project On the Hour. Working with Armando Iannucci, Patrick Marber, Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Steve Coogan and others, he created a highly original spoof news show which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

Move into Television

In 1994 a television series based on On the Hour was broadcast under the name The Day Today. The Day Today made a star of Morris, and also helped to launch the careers of Patrick Marber and Steve Coogan. 1994 proved to be Morris's most critically successful year, as he presented a BBC Radio 1 series similar in content to, but sharper than, the Greater London Radio broadcasts, and teamed up with comedy legend Peter Cook, as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, in a series of improvised conversations for Radio Three, entitled Why Bother?. Morris followed this with Blue Jam, a late-night ambient music and sketch show broadcast on Radio 1, which was later reworked for television as Channel 4's Jam.

The "sick comedy" which had bubbled under in On the Hour and The Day Today found full release, however, with Brass Eye, another spoof current affairs television documentary show, shown on Channel 4. The station remit allowed for more shocking material, and Morris took full advantage of this freedom, exploring such taboos as infant mortality, incest, buggery, rape, suicide and sadomasochism. In 2001 a reprise of Brass Eye on the subject of paedophilia led to record numbers of viewer complaints, and a great deal of hysterical discussion in the press. Many complainants, some of whom later admitted to not having seen the programme (notably Beverley Hughes, at the time a government minister), felt the satire was directed at the victims of paedophilia, which Morris denies. Most critics, however, felt that the programme's target was actually media coverage of the subject. It is interesting to note that the government's criticism appeared at a period of a rather severe worsening of the 2001 UK foot and mouth crisis.

A Controversial Figure

Morris has also covered other controversial subjects. He once falsely suggested on the radio that Jimmy Savile and Conservative MP Michael Heseltine had died; had a show faded mid-broadcast when he played a scurrilous cut-up of the Archbishop of Canterbury's funeral oration for Diana, Princess of Wales, although Radio 1 had previously cleared this for broadcast and this was an error on their part as they mistook it for another censored sketch on a similar theme; and performed a song in the style of Pulp lead singer Jarvis Cocker about notorious child-murderer Myra Hindley with the following lyrics: "Every time I see your picture, Myra/I have to phone my latest girlfriend up and fire her/And find a prostitute who looks like you and hire her/Oh, me oh Myra."

In 1994 Morris portrayed a fictional rapper, Fur-Q for a sketch satirising hip hop's glamourising of guns and violence (signature track - "Uzi Lover"). He would visit similar territory in Brass Eye, with JLB8 (Jailbait), an Eminem clone who openly worked paedophile themes into his work and thus had a huge following of preteen girls.

In 2002 Morris ventured into film with the short My Wrongs 8245 - 8249 and 117, a version of a Blue Jam sketch about a man looking after a sinister talking dog. It was the first film project of Warp Films, a branch of Warp Records. In 2003 this won the BAFTA for best short film.

Morris' most recent television project was a sitcom entitled Nathan Barley, based on the character created by Charlie Brooker for his website TVGoHome. Co-written by Brooker and Morris, the series was broadcast on Channel 4 in early 2005. Recent efforts have tended to stray away from obvious 'jokes' and into more artistically ambiguous areas, dividing his once-loyal fanbase.

Upcoming Work

Soon to appear in "The I.T. Crowd", a new Channel 4 sitcom focusing on the office and home lives of two geeks who work in an IT department. The series is written and directed by Graham Linehan (Father Ted, Black Books writer) and produced by Ash Atalla (The Office). Morris plays the insane boss of the fictional company Reynholm Industries and the series is set in the dingy basement. He appears regularly throughout the series and although this is the first time he has accepted a role that he hasn't written himself, his anarchic style sings through. The series is currently set to appear on Channel 4 around January or February of next year.

Other Information

A significant feature of Morris's output is his music. He often composes and performs incidental music for his television shows, notably with Jam and the 'extended remix' version, Jaaaaam. His parodies of musical performances (such as the Pulp spoof mentioned above and an Eminem in the Paedophilia special) are very accurate. This is due not only to his musical ability, but also to his understanding of the way in which the original artist created their music.

In 2003 he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In 2004, Channel 4 aired a show called The Comedian's Comedian in which foremost writers and performers of comedy ranked their 50 favourite acts. Chris Morris was at number eleven, above many acclaimed comedians including Bill Hicks, Peter Sellers and Eddie Izzard.

Morris is widely regarded as someone reluctant to discuss his work, although he has given interviews, albeit rarely. He is currently said to be eager to return to radio - news welcomed by a large part of his considerable fanbase.

Morris lives in Brixton with wife Jo Unwin.

Works

• No Known Cure (August 1987- March 1989, BBC Radio Bristol)
• Miss Marple (1988-1993, BBC GLR)
• Loose Ends (1989, BBC Radio 4)
• Up Yer Loose One (1990, BSB)
• The Chris Morris Christmas Show (25 December 1990, BBC Radio 1)
• On The Hour (1991-1992, BBC Radio 4)
• White Brother? (1994, BBC Radio 3)
• The Day Today (1994, BBC 2)
• The Chris Morris Music Show (1994, BBC Radio 1)
• Brass Eye (1997, Channel 4)
• Blue Jam (1997-1999, BBC Radio 1)
• Swatman Follies (1998, BBC Radio 4)
• Big Train (1999, BBC 2) Various sketches.
• Second Class Male/Time To Go (1999, newspaper column for The Observer)
• Jam/Jaaaaam (2000, Channel 4)
• Brass Eye Special (2001, Channel 4)
• The Smokehammer (2002, website)
• Absolute Atrocity Special (2002, newspaper pullout for The Observer)
• Bushwhacked (2002)
• My Wrongs 8245 - 8249 and 117 (2002, short film)
• Nathan Barley (2005, Channel 4)
• The I.T. Crowd (2005, Channel 4)

External links

• The Smokehammer - A site by Chris Morris
• Christopher Morris at IMDb
• Cook'd and Bomb'd - A site devoted to the work of Chris Morris and his collaborators
• Pure Morris - Morris downloads
• trashbat.co.ck - This site is referred to in Nathan Barley throughout and, notionally, is the creation of the titular character. The .co.ck domain is as a result of the second level UK domain for company and the top level domain for the Cook Islands.