Genre | Comedy, horror |
---|---|
Running time | 1 hour |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | BBC Radio 1 |
Starring | Chris Morris Kevin Eldon Julia Davis Mark Heap David Cann Amelia Bullmore |
Created by | Chris Morris |
Written by | Chris Morris Graham Linehan Arthur Mathews Peter Baynham David Quantick Jane Bussmann Robert Katz Kevin Eldon Julia Davis Mark Heap David Cann Amelia Bullmore |
Directed by | Chris Morris |
Produced by | Chris Morris |
Narrated by | Chris Morris |
Original release | 14 November 1997 – 25 February 1999 |
No. of series | 3 |
No. of episodes | 18 |
Opening theme | "Stem/Long Stem/Transmission 2" by DJ Shadow, played in reverse |
Blue Jam was an ambient, surreal dark comedy and horror radio programme created and directed by Chris Morris. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in the early hours of the morning, for three series from 1997 to 1999.
The programme gained cult status due to its unique mix of surreal monologue, ambient soundtrack, synthesised voices, heavily edited broadcasts and recurring sketches. It featured vocal performances of Kevin Eldon, Julia Davis, Mark Heap, David Cann and Amelia Bullmore, with Morris himself delivering disturbing monologues, one of which was revamped and made into the BAFTA-winning short film My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117 . Writers who contributed to the programme included Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews, Peter Baynham, David Quantick, Jane Bussmann, Robert Katz and the cast.
The programme was adapted into the TV series Jam , which aired in 2000.
On his inspiration for making the show, Morris commented: "It was so singular, and it came from a mood, quite a desolate mood. I had this misty, autumnal, boggy mood anyway, so I just went with that. But no doubt getting to the end of something like Brass Eye, where you've been forced to be a sort of surrogate lawyer, well, that's the most creatively stifling thing you could possibly do." [1] Morris also described the show as being "like the nightmares you have when you fall asleep listening to the BBC World Service" (a reference to the World Service also appears in one of the monologues read by Morris).
Morris originally requested that the show be broadcast at 3 a.m. on Radio 1 "because at that hour, on insomniac radio, the amplitude of terrible things is enormously overblown". As a compromise, the show was broadcast at midnight without much promotion. Morris reportedly included sketches too graphic or transgressive for radio that he knew would be cut so as to make his other material seem less transgressive in comparison. During the airing of episode 6 of series one, a re-editing of the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech at Princess Diana's funeral was deemed too offensive for broadcast, and was switched with a different episode as it aired.
Each episode opened (and closed) with a short spoken monologue (delivered by Morris) describing, in surreal, broken language, various bizarre feelings and situations (for example: "when you sick so sad you cry, and in crying cry a whole leopard from your eye"), set to ambient music interspersed with short clips of other songs and sounds. The introduction would always end with "welcome in Blue Jam", inviting the listener, who is presumably experiencing such feelings, to get lost in the program. (This format was replicated in the television adaptation Jam , often reusing opening monologues from series 3 of the radio series.) The sketches within dealt with heavy and taboo topics, such as murder, suicide, missing or dead children, and rape.
The sketches not listed are often in the style of a documentary; characters speak as if being interviewed about a recent event. In one sketch, a character voiced by Morris describes a man attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a second-story balcony repeatedly; in another, an angry man (Eldon) shouts about how his car, after being picked up from the garage, is only four feet long.
Morris included a series of 'radio stings', bizarre sequences of sounds and prose as a parody of modern DJs' own soundbites and self-advertising pieces. Each one revolves around a contemporary DJ, such as Chris Moyles, Jo Whiley and Mark Goodier, typically involving each DJ dying in a graphic way or going mad in some form – for example, Chris Moyles covering himself in jam and hanging himself from the top of a building.
Three series were produced, with a total of eighteen episodes. All episodes were originally broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 1. Series 1 was broadcast from 14 November to 19 December 1997; series 2 was broadcast from 27 March to 1 May 1998; and series 3 broadcast from 21 January to 25 February 1999.
The first five episodes of series 1 of Blue Jam were repeated by BBC Radio 4 Extra in February and March 2014, and series 2 was rebroadcast in December. [1]
No. | Title | |
---|---|---|
1.1 | "ee arth welcome" | |
Sketches include: The Gun & The Gibbon monologue, babies fighting each other, Radio 1 Newsbeat , and the Doctor kissing things to make them better. Includes music from Björk, Apollo 440, Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, Eels, The KLF, and Massive Attack. | ||
1.2 | "oo ab welcome" | |
Sketches include: a man convinced he's a baby trapped in the body of a man, Conceptual Art monologue, an unusual acupuncture practice, and Bad Sex. Includes music from DJ Shadow, Aphex Twin, Naked Funk, and D'Angelo. | ||
1.3 | "oo mug welcome" | |
Sketches include: the Doctor getting very angry over a pulled tendon, a man asking for a pay rise, a builder in a swimming bath with a strange ability, and Crime Reconstruction monologue. Includes music from Les Rhythmes Digitales, Dubstar, Baby Fox, and Spearhead. | ||
1.4 | "oo voof welcome" | |
Sketches include: Elephant monologue, a man very angry over his four-foot car, Michael Alexander St. John reading the dance chart, and a man robbing a store with a gun in his stomach. Includes music from Propellerheads, Moloko, Björk, and William Orbit. | ||
1.5 | "voo vak welcome" | |
Sketches include: London Dungeon monologue, three lawyer skits, the Doctor thinking a man is quite ugly, and an unorthodox children's birthday party. Includes music from Common, Moby, Beck, and Portishead. | ||
1.6 | "oo vudge welcome" | |
This episode was cut short and cross-faded into the first episode during broadcast, as one of the skits – Morris's re-editing of the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech at Princess Diana's funeral – was apparently deemed too offensive to broadcast. The sketch was replaced and the new re-edited episode was aired as episode 2.1; this episode, 1.6, consists of the first 13 minutes of episode 2.1, the "Bishopslips" skit, and most of episode 1.1. | ||
2.1 | "oo vudge welcome" | |
Sketches include: a little girl with the genitals of an older man, The Belt monologue, the Doctor pays a man to go away, and some unemployed Welshmen chat. Includes music from Massive Attack, Moloko, Sneaker Pimps, and Ben Harper. | ||
2.2 | "oo thub welcome" | |
2.3 | "oo taz welcome" | |
Sketches include: the four-year-old gangster girl returns, Mr Ventham has trouble with his pockets, the Doctor prescribes heroin, and a couple specializes in raising the dead. Includes music from Happy Mondays, Jimi Tenor, Serge Gainsbourg, and Moloko. | ||
2.4 | "oo ziz welcome" | |
Sketches include: a penis-shaped nightlight, Rothko monologue, unnecessary operations, and The Gush. Includes music from Madonna, Air, Brian Eno, and Imagination. | ||
2.5 | "ah zim pulz wah welcome" | |
2.6 | "ah ah moorz moorz welcome" | |
Sketches include: an interview with Jerry Springer, a family with pet lions, a man who lives outdoors, and a thing in the sky. Includes music from Dubstar, Massive Attack, Akasha, and Boards of Canada. | ||
3.1 | "package holiday welcome" | |
Sketches include: unusual foreplay, Sausage Street Vendors monologue, urine transfusions, and the Doctor hides. Includes music from Kool and the Gang, Beck, Mr Scruff, and Marvin Gaye. | ||
3.2 | "uh h-hm-hm-hmu welcome" | |
Sketches include: two parents sing a song for their missing child, a restaurant with an Ugly Weirdo policy, Michael Alexander St. John reads the dance news, and a woman calls the plumber. Includes music from Low, Esthero, Moloko, and Wagon Christ. | ||
3.3 | "oo costrinsi welcome" | |
Sketches include: Cigarettes monologue, someone possessed by Beethoven, a zombie baby, and someone who has trouble starting conversations. Includes music from Herbert, Beck, Amon Tobin, and PJ Harvey. | ||
3.4 | "har com plusian bezhley welcome" | |
Sketches include: a man who definitely has a willy, an employment agency for thick people, even more unemployed Welshmen, and open abdomen therapy. Includes music from Howie B, Aphex Twin, Mercury Rev, and Broadcast. | ||
3.5 | "al trang un sabers welcome" | |
3.6 | "oo huxtapaz welcome" | |
The final episode of Blue Jam. Sketches include: more Bad Sex, a man tries to commit suicide with an escape clause, an idiot compound, and a man decapitates himself for art's sake. Includes music from Boom Boom Satellites, Sade, Black Star Liner, and Aphex Twin. |
Blue Jam features songs, generally of a downtempo nature, interspersed between (and sometimes during) sketches. Artists featured includes Massive Attack, Air, Morcheeba, The Chemical Brothers, Björk, Aphex Twin, Everything But the Girl and Dimitri from Paris, as well as various non-electronic artists including Sly and the Family Stone, Serge Gainsbourg, The Cardigans and Eels.
Blue Jam was favourably reviewed on several occasions by The Guardian [2] [3] [4] [5] and also received a positive review by The Independent . [6]
Digital Spy wrote in 2014: "It's a heady cocktail that provokes an odd, unsettling reaction in the listener, yet Blue Jam is still thumpingly and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious." [7] Hot Press called it "as odd as comedy gets". [8]
A CD of a number of Blue Jam sketches was released on 23 October 2000 by record label Warp. Although the CD claims to have 22 tracks, the last one, "www.bishopslips.com", is not a track, but rather a reference to the "Bishopslips" sketch, which was cut in the middle of a broadcast. Most of the sketches on the CD were remade for Jam .
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [9] |
NME | 8/10 [10] |
Select | [11] |
Blue Jam was later made for television and broadcast on Channel 4 as Jam . It used unusual editing techniques to achieve an unnerving ambience in keeping with the radio show. Many of the sketches were lifted from the radio version, even to the extent of simply setting images to the radio soundtrack. A subsequent "re-mixed" airing, called Jaaaaam was even more extreme in its use of post-production gadgetry, often heavily distorting the footage.
Blue Jam shares parallels with early editions of a US public radio show Joe Frank: Work in Progress from the mid-1980s, that Joe Frank did on the NPR affiliate station, KCRW, in Santa Monica, California. [12]
Christopher J. Morris is an English comedian, radio presenter, actor and filmmaker. Known for his deadpan, dark humour, surrealism and controversial subject matter, he has been praised by the British Film Institute for his "uncompromising, moralistic drive".
The Day Today is a British comedy television show that parodies television news and current affairs programmes, broadcast from 19 January to 23 February 1994 on BBC2. It was created by Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris and is an adaptation of the radio programme On the Hour, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 9 August 1991 and 28 May 1992 and was also written by Morris, Iannucci, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, David Quantick, and the cast. For The Day Today, Peter Baynham joined the writing team, and Lee and Herring were replaced by Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews. The principal cast of On the Hour was retained for The Day Today.
On the Hour was a British radio programme that parodied current affairs broadcasting, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1991 and 1992. Written by Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and David Quantick, On the Hour starred Morris as the overzealous and self-important principal anchor. He was accompanied by a regular cast assembled by Iannucci, comprising Steve Coogan, Rebecca Front, Doon Mackichan, Patrick Marber and David Schneider, who portrayed assorted news reporters, presenters and interviewees. On the Hour featured the first appearance of Coogan's character Alan Partridge as the "Sports Desk" reporter.
Christopher David Moyles is an English radio and television presenter, author and presenter of The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X.
Big Train is a British television sketch show created by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan. The first series was broadcast on BBC Two in 1998, while the second, in which Linehan was not involved, aired in 2002.
Jam is a British experimental black comedy sketch show, created, co-written, produced and directed by Chris Morris. It was broadcast on Channel 4 between 23 March and 27 April 2000. It was based on the earlier BBC Radio 1 show, Blue Jam, and consists of an unconnected series of disturbing and surreal sketches, unfolding over an ambient soundtrack. Many of the sketches re-used the original radio soundtracks with the actors lip-synching their lines, an unusual technique which added to the programme's unsettling atmosphere, and featured unorthodox use of visual effects and sound manipulation.
Sara Joanne Cox is an English broadcaster and author. A presenter on BBC Radio 2, she has been hosting the station's teatime show since January 2019. She previously presented BBC Radio 1's breakfast show from April 2000 until December 2003.
My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117 is a 2002 British short film written and directed by Chris Morris, starring Paddy Considine as a mentally disturbed man taking care of a friend's Doberman Pinscher while she is away. The dog talks to him and convinces him that he is on trial for everything he has done wrong in his life, and the dog is his lawyer.
Peter Baynham is a Welsh screenwriter and performer. He appeared in a series of comedic Pot Noodle television adverts in the 1990s. His writing work includes collaborations with comedy figures such as Armando Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Chris Morris, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Sarah Smith. Born in Cardiff, Baynham served in the Merchant Navy after leaving school and later pursued a career in comedy — first in stand-up, and then as a writer and performer for various news and sketch comedies in radio and television while enjoying personal fame starring in Pot Noodle adverts. He then became a writer in feature film.
Fist of Fun was a British comedy show, initially a BBC Radio 1 series in 1993 and then a BBC2 television series in 1995. It was written by and starred the comedians Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. Each episode of Fist of Fun consisted of disparate sketches, stand-up comedy segments, dialogues, and situations.
Kevin Eldon is an English actor and comedian. He featured in British comedy television shows of the 1990s including Fist of Fun, This Morning with Richard Not Judy, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, I'm Alan Partridge, Big Train, Brass Eye and Jam. In 2013, Eldon appeared in his own BBC sketch series It's Kevin. He has also appeared in minor speaking roles in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Mark Heap is a British actor and comedian. He is known for his roles in television comedies, including Brass Eye, Big Train, Spaced, Jam, Green Wing, Friday Night Dinner, Upstart Crow, and Benidorm.
David Lloyd Vitty is a British radio presenter. He worked alongside Chris Moyles at BBC Radio 1, having originally been a broadcast assistant on Moyles' early morning show. He became the show's head writer and 'Director of Comedy' and moved with Moyles to the drivetime slot, and then to Radio 1 Breakfast, during which time the programme was known as The Chris Moyles Show. In total, he spent 14 years from 1998 to 2012 working alongside Moyles.
Dominic Anthony Byrne is a British newsreader, presenter, songwriter, musician, and professional comedian. Byrne currently works on the Chris Moyles Breakfast show on Radio X, having previously worked as the newsreader for Capital London on the Capital FM Breakfast Show. Prior to this he worked with the BBC from 1997 to 2012, as part of the on-air team on The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1 from 2004 to 2012, working as the newsreader and contributing to the show's zoo format.
The Armando Iannucci Shows is a series of eight programmes directed by Armando Iannucci and written by Iannucci with Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil. It was shown on UK's Channel 4 from 30 August to 18 October 2001. Each episode focused on specific themes related to human nature and existentialism, around which Iannucci would weave a series of surreal sketches and monologues.
Newsbeat is the BBC's radio news programme broadcast on Radio 1, Radio 1Xtra and Asian Network. Newsbeat is produced by BBC News but differs from the BBC's other news programmes in its remit to provide news tailored for young people.
Desperate Romantics is a six-part television drama serial about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, first broadcast on BBC Two between 21 July and 25 August 2009.
This Is Jinsy is a British comedy television series. The pilot was first broadcast on 1 March 2010 on BBC Three. The programme is about the bizarre residents of the fictional island of Jinsy which is based on Guernsey, where the two writers are from. The show was written by Chris Bran and Justin Chubb who also play the leading roles. Although the pilot episode was made for the BBC, the full series of eight episodes was picked up by Sky Atlantic. The first series began airing with a double bill on 19 September 2011 and ended on 31 October 2011. A second series was commissioned and was first broadcast on 8 January 2014.
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. The 'About Radio 2' BBC webpage says: "With a repertoire covering more than 60 years, Radio 2 plays the widest selection of music on the radio - from classic and mainstream pop to country, folk, jazz, musical theatre, soul, hip hop, rock 'n' roll, gospel and blues."