A Brief Encounter With Chris Morris

Chris Morris doesn’t do interviews, photoshoots or public appearances; at least that is conventional wisdom. Throughout his 24-year career he has acquired a reputation as one of the most elusive figures in comedy. For years he refused to be photographed out of character and when asked to do a photoshoot in the 90’s he asked to be photographed from a distance, blurred in amongst the dozens of commuters. As far as interviews go, he has often proved elusive and near impossible to get hold of. In 2003, Xan Brooks from the Guardian attempted to phone his office to ask some follow up questions to a recent and rare interview and was greeted with an answering machine advising the caller to try Morris mobile by "pressing the hash key 17 times". While nearly always maintaining a stern, secretive silence regarding his working methods and refusing to explain himself whenever he has courted controversy, he is regarded as something of a recluse.

 Recently this seems to have changed, and now Morris has a new film to promote; a comedy about a group of would-be suicide bombers called ‘Four Lions’. It is his first feature film, and he has duly provided himself for all manner of recent interviews and Q&A sessions. Tonight, he is appearing at the Curzon Soho for a Q&A with co-writer Sam Bain and actors Kayvan Novak and Arsher Ali, I have come along mainly to get a rare glimpse of the man. It is a fairly significant fan-boy moment for me; the work of Chris Morris is second only to the music of New Order as the greatest of a long line of pop-culture obsessions of mine. He came to my office two years ago to pitch Four Lions (we turned him down), and I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to him, instead my supervisor, Dean badgered him on his way out, explained my fondness for his work and Morris very kindly send a runner back later with a signed Nathan Barley DVD addressed to me. Contrary to his difficult and reputation as a media recluse on a par with Terence Malick and Stanley Kubrick, he apparently seemed to be a fairly warm, charming and friendly individual. But then again where Chris Morris is concerned, nothing appears to be normal.


He was born in 1962, the son of two doctors and attended the public school Stonyhurst College. Later, after graduating from Bristol University with a degree in Zoology, he found work in radio, quickly learning all the tricks of the trade that would serve him over the years. He would eventually be fired for allegedly filling the news booth with helium during a broadcast, but he quickly found work for GLR before being hand picked by Armando Ianucci to be the lead reporter for the now classic news spoof radio series On The Hour and it’s television spin-off The Day Today. Working alongside Steve Coogan, Rebecca Front and Patrick Marber, Morris in the lead role would appear as a Paxman-esque anchorman berating his guests while maintaining strange banter with Coogan’s Alan Partridge, also making his TV debut.



In 1994, he moved to BBC Radio One, where he was given an hour long slot on Wednesday evenings. It is here, where in my opinion, his best work lies. He soon found himself trouble after announcing the death of Michael Hestletine on air and calling up MP Jerry Hayes and former Jam bassist Bruce Foxton for a soundbite, asking the latter which bass line would be “a suitable lament”. From then on, the show was pre-recorded, but brilliant moments still followed including a sketch where Morris and co-conspirator Peter Baynham find DJ Johnnie Walker dead in the studio and phone a French taxidermist to see if they can stuff him (“il est un dauphin de music-radio”). Legal action was soon threatened after he announced the death of Jimmy Saville and the series came to an end on Boxing Day 1994.



Once describing his approach to comedy as: "If you make a joke in an area which is for some reason, normally random, out of bounds, then you might find something out, you might put your finger on something" Morris has always sailed 'close to the mark' with his work and never more so with his next project. Resuming his Paxman-style news anchor he created Brass Eye in 1997, a spoof on current affairs programmes it focused on various issues (animals, sex, crime) while lampooning the news an media in general. The now classic ‘Drugs’ episode had Morris forming a campaign against “made up drug” Cake, and enticing Noel Edmonds, Bernard Ingham, Rolf Harris and MP David Amess to speak out in support of its banning. Before he realised he had been duped Amess even asked a question in the Commons about the fictional drug. However, Channel 4 boss Michael Grade soon asked for cuts to the risqué series and Morris responded by (possibly illegally) inserting ‘Grade Is A Cunt’ subliminally into the last episode. He also wrote to Nelson Mandella saying Grade campaigned for him to remain in prison and to Paul Simon telling the songwriter Grade considered Art Garfunkel to be the superior of his one-time duo.



But it was the 2001 Brass Eye special on paedophilia that made Morris a hate figure for the tabloids. Again roping in celebrities like the DJ Neil Fox saying paedophiles had the genetics of a crab (“there’s no scientific proof for this, but it is a fact”) and Richard Blackwood claiming paedophiles had taken over a piece of the internet the size of Ireland. The Daily Mail branded him the ‘most hated man on tv’ and the episode attracted a record number of complaints to Offcom. For his part, Morris remained silent, refusing to respond to the tabloids and quietly sitting the storm out. The episode, though it does push comedy about as far as it can go, is now regarded as something of a classic and the Brass Eye DVD became a best-seller.


This was then followed by the radio series Blue Jam and its TV equivalent Jam. Opening with a narration by Morris and set to a soundtrack featuring Aphex Twin and Brian Eno, it is a sketch show consisting of various creepy, surreal and bizarre settings involving murder, abortion, nervous breakdowns and dead babies. Arguably even more disturbing than Brass Eye, it attracted little attention due to a deliberate lack of publicity and its extremely late transmission time. They represent his most challenging work (it’s debatable as to whether or not it is actually comedy) but remains a rewarding part of his oeuvre. After completing My Wrongs, an award winning short film, in 2005 he collaborated with Charlie Brooker for the sitcom Nathan Barley, a satire of trendy East London types. Despite airing to disappointing ratings and mixed critical reaction, it is now regarding as a cult classic and its influence on pop culture has spread far and wide.


Since then Morris has been rather quiet, taking on an acting role for The IT Crowd and undertaking lengthy research for the Four Lions project. I saw the film in a rough version a few months ago and I feel it is lacking the bite of his previous projects. Nevertheless, it remains a refreshing and original take on the post-9/11 world and it certainly is not a chore to sit through again with an audience. Before it started Morris briefly introduces the film; he looks very different to his most famous representation in Brass Eye. He is very tall, around 6’’5, with long curly and unkempt hair, the acne scars glimpsed from his on camera appearances is clearly notable as is his large birthmark, his voice however is very similar, he is every bit the ex-public schoolboy and at times resembles a weekend middle class Glastonbury goer. Despite this he has a very commanding presence, and for someone who typically avoids interviews he is in many ways a perfect interviewee, providing constantly charming and witty responses and being able to talk at length and fairly eloquently about a wide range of subjects.


The Q&A passes by without much incident, the audience is very polite nobody asks any real challenging questions regarding Islamic terrorism nor grills him about his past work, everyone is quite happy just to hear him talk. Somebody asks what his plans are next and he proves to be typically elusive saying for all he knows it could be a “five second vod-cast”. When it finishes after a very quick hour I timidly approach the man as he descends from the stage and ask him if he would mind signing the poster. “Yeah sure” he replies in his immediately recognisable voice and I lay out the poster “do you want any of the other guys like Kayvan to sign it?”, meaning the other actors but they have already walked off. “They seem to have buggered off” I reply and Morris signs the poster (depicting a crow strapped to a miniature bomb) “Where’s Kayvan?” before putting his signature at the bottom. I then meekly shake his hand and head off into the night in a very good mood indeed.