Mere months after the stormclouds of controversy had rained down on “Brass Eye”, Chris Morris made a surprisingly low key return with this almost unannounced new series. “Blue Jam”, an experimental comedy series that for once really did do something experimental, moved sharply away from the previous style of Morris’ humour; instead, it adopted a sketch format, with its disturbing and surreal scenarios of dark and sinister concepts sketched out by desolate monologues and dreamy, murmured conversations. Behind these sounds lay a complex and intricate mix of ambient dance music, continental pop and spectral ballads, closely mirroring the mood of each item with their evocative sounds. Morris produced and wrote (with Peter Baynham and others) the series, although he shared performing duties with Kevin Eldon, Julia Davis, David Cann, Amelia Bulmore and Mark Heap. “Blue Jam” was broadcast in the small hours of the morning, but even here Morris was not safe from the attentions of the censors, and the final show of the initial run of six episodes was faded out after just fifteen minutes when Radio 1 panicked over his re-editing of The Archbishop Of Canterbury’s speech from the funeral of The Princess Of Wales (rumours persist that Morris was told this could not be broadcast, but surreptitiously swapped the tapes at the last minute). Into total, three sets of six episodes were produced between 1997 and 1999, two of which won the Sony Award for Best Radio Comedy.
Taken from: http://chilled.cream.org/
