As in much of Morris's work, surrealism was an important part of the programme, the nonsense in the content ("De-frocked cleric eats car park", "Borrowed dog finds Scotland", etc.) delivered in the same straight-faced manner with which contemporary news stories are dealt, and it has often been quoted that Morris's initial intention was indeed to show how the public would believe anything if it were delivered with a straight face.[4][5] It did fool many people, with some listeners ringing in to complain about how the anchor treated his guests. The programme also utilised editing of out-of-context sound-clips and prank phone calls, heightening its surreal quality.[6]
The programme satirised broadcasting within news programmes by emphasising that it was reporting the news, repeating the show's title, and using such aspects as news speak, media manipulation, exploitation of tragedies, patronising mistreatment of the general public, a lack of fact checking (personified by Marber's Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan), and the general assumption that the programme itself is infallible ("On the Hour– Towards a New Eden").[6][7] Also satirised were party political broadcasts, chummy yet vacuous radio DJs (in the form of Morris's Wayne Carr), religious broadcasting, glossy magazines, 'fun' local events, local radio, youth information shows, Radio 4 plays, Royal ceremonies, and even satirical comedies that do not hit the mark. Episodes often featured a main storyline (the World "Summit on the Future", coverage of the public execution of Prince Edward, etc.) interspersed between the news items.[8]
Twelve episodes were made (including a Christmas special, of which two versions exist) and broadcast in 1991 and 1992. A regular feature in Series One (episodes 1-6) was the On the Hour "Audio Pullout", a mid-episode "colour supplement" that would usually parody human interest stories and local events (and, in one episode, was sponsored by a [fictional] American Christian Fundamentalist sect).
The final episode of On the Hour closed with Morris introducing a set of headlines with the line "And there is still just time to part the beef curtains on tomorrow's news." Running throughout the final episode was the announcement that On the Hour would be taking over all of Radio 4 to transmit 24-hour "Perma-News".[9]
On the Hour was named "Best Radio Comedy" at the 1992 British Comedy Awards, and it also won the 1992 Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Comedy/Light Entertainment. The On the Hour team (minus Lee and Herring due to creative/legal disputes, who were replaced by Peter Baynham and writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews) subsequently made a television series called The Day Today, which retained the same regular cast and several characters from On the Hour.[10]
Recurring characters
Christopher Morris (Chris Morris): The anchor. Combative and over-zealous, he believes in the infallibility of the news, bombastically delivering slogans like "Man is only 90% water, but On the Hour is 100% news!", "Arise, Sir News!" and "These facts are ear-shaped, let's ram them home!" Morris frequently talks over his guests and does not realise or will not admit when he has the wrong person on the other end of the phone. He "interviews" real-life politicians, whose responses are edited from pre-recorded material to render them nonsensical, as well as the public, who give baffled or earnest responses to absurd questions such as, "Which is worse, a horizontal disease or a vertical disease?" Morris reprised his newsman persona for The Day Today and Brass Eye, retaining the character's self-importance while further emphasising his bullying demeanour.
Roger Blatt/Michael Blatt (Chris Morris): Roger Blatt is the "Disaster correspondent" for a train crash report; the identically-voiced Michael Blatt is the "Strategy correspondent" for the On the Hour "War Special".
Wayne Carr (Chris Morris): An upbeat and smug DJ with a penchant for contracting words. Wayne's reports include inappropriately upbeat coverage of a train crash disaster, an exposé on hidden messages in pop records, and a "chinnywag" about endangered animals. The character of Wayne Carr was retained from Morris's previous radio projects. His name is a reference to the abusive term "wanker". While the personality of Carr is an amalgam of various BBC Radio 1 DJs throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the principal inspiration is based on Steve Wright (DJ) and his show Steve Wright in the Afternoon.
Continuity Announcer (Chris Morris): Often called upon to present news or announce the station's scheduling, the Continuity Announcer speaks with a deep, nasal voice, and can be heard shuffling paperwork before he speaks. Morris later used the Continuity Announcer's voice for the national emergenciespropaganda reel in the second episode of The Day Today.
Lionel Cosgrave (David Schneider): An Everyman who appears in several news reports; his surname is referred to interchangeably as "Cosgrave" and "Cosgrove". Lionel's age varies according to each report– sometimes he is a youngster, at other times middle-aged. Lionel is usually presented as a victim (of police corruption and brutality; physical abuse in public schools, etc.).
Rosy May (Rebecca Front): Environmental correspondent. Rosy presents absurd environmentally themed news in the segment "Green Desk". This segment is accompanied by new-age music, including synthesised whale song. Rosy later appeared in The Day Today, although her segment was re-titled "Enviromation".
Jacques Œuf (Chris Morris): Appears in two episodes as a French counterpart to Wayne Carr, primarily reporting on celebrity incidents, including a series of photos featuring celebrities vomiting in public and a fight between Brigitte Bardot and Jean-Michel Jarre at Cannes. A broadcaster from "Euronews", Œuf speaks in improper and mispronounced French. Like Carr, his name is a homophonic slang term for masturbation ("jack off").
Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan (Patrick Marber): A grossly incompetent Economics correspondent who reports dubious facts and figures before being forced by Morris to admit that he has not read the reports he is presenting. He later appeared in The Day Today.
Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan): Sports correspondent. Alan presents "Sports Desk" reports for On the Hour, but he frequently displays little to no knowledge of the sports he is covering, getting the terminology and basic rules of the sports wrong. Interviewing real-life sporting figures impersonated by the cast such as Nigel Mansell, Graham Gooch, Seve Ballesteros, Gabriela Sabatini and Linford Christie, as well as fictional athletes, Alan frequently goes into tangents relating to groin injuries and the interviewees' physical attractiveness. His interviews usually end in awkwardness for himself, his subject(s), or both. He also makes condescending remarks towards women and Moroccans during his coverage of the 1992 Olympic Games. He is absent from the original untransmitted pilot episode of On the Hour, which features a sports correspondent named "Bill", played by Armando Iannucci. Now one of Britain's most enduring and beloved comic characters,[11] after On the Hour, Alan would appear in the Radio 4 series Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge; the TV series The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge; the web series Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge; two 'specials', the film Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and most recently, the spoof magazine show This Time With Alan Partridge; as well as several appearances for the UK charity Comic Relief.
Kevin Smear (Patrick Marber): Correspondent who appears in several episodes and is later referred to as the winner of the "Golden Fist Award" for his reporting.
Monsignor Treeb-Lopez (Patrick Marber): Contributes trite, religious bons mot all somehow referencing Jesus in the segment "Thought for the Day". A creation of Lee and Herring, Treeb-Lopez was not retained for The Day Today; his character was replaced by Marber's French postmodernistphilosopher, Jaques-'Jaques' Liverot.
Barbara Wintergreen (Rebecca Front): Correspondent on the American channel CBN. Speaking with an exaggerated American accent and making use of convoluted puns, her reports include a Christmas-themed prison execution, prenatal makeovers, a re-enactment of the JFK assassination, and women being banned from the state of Nebraska. Barbara's reports include recurring characters such as Death row inmate Daimler Jeffries (Patrick Marber) and feminist Donna Doubtfire (Doon Mackichan), as well as various characters played by Steve Coogan. Barbara Wintergreen later appeared in The Day Today, in which Marber's Daimler Jeffries character was renamed "Chapman Baxter" and Mackichan's Donna Doubtfire character was renamed "Thea Peachman".
Reception
In a 2008 article for Uncut, David Quantick described On the Hour as "the show that changed everything" and wrote "only a complete arse would call On The Hour the Monty Python of the modern era, but I am a complete arse, so here goes: On The Hour is the Monty Python of the modern era. Which makes me at best a lumberjack, but there you go."[12] In 2009, The Quietus wrote that On the Hour "remains one of British broadcast comedy's most dizzying accomplishments."[13]
Episodes
Series One
Episode One (first broadcast: 9 August 1991)
Episode Two (first broadcast: 16 August 1991)
Episode Three (first broadcast: 23 August 1991)
Episode Four (first broadcast: 30 August 1991)
Episode Five (first broadcast: 6 September 1991)
Episode Six [Christmas Special] (first broadcast: 24 December 1991)
Series Two
Episode One (first broadcast: 23 April 1992)
Episode Two (first broadcast: 30 April 1992)
Episode Three (first broadcast: 7 May 1992)
Episode Four (first broadcast: 14 May 1992)
Episode Five (first broadcast: 21 May 1992)
Episode Six (first broadcast: 28 May 1992)
Commercial availability
Owing to the dispute with Lee and Herring mentioned above, the show was initially only commercially available as a two-hour audio compilation on audio cassette. The compilation was edited down from the six hours of both series and specials, which removed all traces of Lee and Herring's writing. This was widely available for many years, and a CD re-release was announced in the early 2000s in the inlays of other Radio Collection titles but failed to materialise.
Like many BBC Radio comedies, On the Hour has been repeated on the digital station BBC Radio 4 Extra since its inception in 2002 as BBC7 (later BBC Radio 7), although most of these differ from the original broadcast versions. The final two episodes from series 1 are aired in their 30-minute form, taken from extended repeats broadcast in 1991, whilst series 2 transmissions are based on the edited repeats for BBC Radio 4. The penultimate episode of series 2 was missing from all millennial repeats, as the master tape was apparently lost, but after a twelve-year search the tape was finally located and the episode repeated several times in 2015 (from the master copy of the edited repeat like the rest of series 2).
Both series of On the Hour were released as limited-edition audio CD boxed sets by Warp Records in November 2008, in their original episodic form. Series 1 was uncut, although five out of six episodes of series 2 were presented in their significantly edited repeat versions. The only uncut series 2 episode— the then-still-missing episode 5 - was included from an off-air cassette. The Christmas episode included on the series 1 set is the 1992 version. The original version, first broadcast on 24 December 1991, featured a satirical overview of the year 1991; this overview was replaced by material parodying the events of 1992 for the episode's repeat on 31 December 1992.
Extra tracks include the untransmitted pilot episode; a remastered needledrop of the flexidisc originally released by Select magazine in May 1992; the "Resurrection Cattle" sketch (intended to be slipped into the Radio 4 series Today); and over 20 minutes of unedited improvisations from some of the Alan Partridge sessions.
Both series can also be purchased on iTunes and have been uploaded to streaming sites such as YouTube.
Related Research Articles
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".
Alan Gordon Partridge is an English comedy character portrayed by Steve Coogan. A parody of British television personalities, Partridge is a tactless and inept broadcaster with an inflated sense of celebrity. Since his debut in 1991, he has appeared in media including radio and television series, books, podcasts and film.
Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish satirist, writer, director, producer, performer and panellist.
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.
Rebecca Louise Front is an English actress, writer and comedian. She won the 2010 BAFTA TV Award for Best Female Comedy Performance for The Thick of It (2009–2012). She is also known for her work in numerous other British comedies, including the radio show On The Hour (1992), The Day Today (1994), Knowing Me, Knowing You… with Alan Partridge (1994), Time Gentlemen Please (2000–2002), sketch show Big Train (2002), and Nighty Night (2004–2005).
I'm Alan Partridge is a British sitcom created by Steve Coogan, Peter Baynham and Armando Iannucci. Coogan stars as Alan Partridge, a tactless and inept broadcaster. The first series, broadcast in 1997, has Coogan living in a roadside hotel after having been left by his wife and dropped by the BBC. The second, broadcast in 2002, sees Partridge living in a static caravan after recovering from a mental breakdown. Iannucci said the writers used the sitcom as "a kind of social X-ray of male middle-aged Middle England".
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.
Simon Munnery is an English comedian.
Patrick Albert Crispin Marber is an English comedian, playwright, director, actor, and screenwriter.
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.
Sarah Doon Mackichan is a British actress, comedian and writer. She co-created, wrote and performed in the double-Emmy-award-winning Smack the Pony. She frequently collaborates with Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan, having played multiple characters in The Day Today, Brass Eye and Alan Partridge, and has also appeared in Toast of London and Two Doors Down. Mackichan was nominated for Best Female Comedy Performance at the 2014 British Academy Television Awards for her performance in Plebs and won critical praise for her performance alongside John Malkovich in Bitter Wheat in 2019.
David Schneider is an English actor, comedian, and director. His acting roles include the role of Tony Hayers, in the Alan Partridge franchise.
Lee and Herring were a British standup comedy double act consisting of the comedians Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. They were most famous for their work on television, most notably Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard Not Judy but had been working together on stage and on radio since the late 1980s.
Galaxy was a short-lived British satellite television channel, owned and operated by British Satellite Broadcasting.
Lee and Herring was a British radio series broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1994 and 1995, named after the comedy double act who hosted it, Lee and Herring.
Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge is a BBC Television comedy series of six episodes, and a Christmas special Knowing Me, Knowing Yule on 29 December 1995. It is named after the song "Knowing Me, Knowing You" by ABBA, a rendition of which was used as the show's title music. Steve Coogan plays the incompetent but self-satisfied Norwich-based talk show host Alan Partridge, who often insults his guests and humiliates himself in the process. Alan was a spin-off character from the spoof radio show On the Hour. Knowing Me, Knowing You was written by Coogan, Armando Iannucci and Patrick Marber, with contributions from the regular supporting cast of Doon Mackichan, Rebecca Front and David Schneider, who played Alan's weekly guests. Steve Brown provided the show's music and arrangements, and also appeared as Glenn Ponder, the man in charge of the house band.
Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge is a BBC Radio 4 series of six episodes. It is named after the song "Knowing Me, Knowing You" by ABBA, which was used as the show's title music.
Mid Morning Matters is a British digital radio show parody written by Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons and Armando Iannucci, produced by Baby Cow Productions and funded by the British arm of Australian lager company Foster's, starring Coogan as fictional radio DJ Alan Partridge. The first of twelve 15-minute episodes was uploaded to the Foster's Funny website on 5 November 2010, and then available on YouTube. Six 30-minute episodes titled Alan Partridge Mid Morning Matters: Special Edition, edited from the web series, began airing on Sky Atlantic in July 2012 as part of a deal between producers Baby Cow and BSkyB. A second series consisting of six episodes premiered in February 2016.
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa is a 2013 British comedy film starring Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge, a fictional presenter he has played on various BBC radio and television shows since 1991. It was directed by Declan Lowney and written by Coogan, Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham and Neil and Rob Gibbons. Colm Meaney co-starred as Pat Farrell, a DJ who takes hostages after he is fired from Partridge's radio station; Partridge is enlisted as a negotiator.
This Time with Alan Partridge is a British sitcom first broadcast in 2019 on BBC One. It stars Steve Coogan as the inept broadcaster Alan Partridge in a spoof of day-time magazine programmes such as The One Show and Good Morning Britain.
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