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Chris Morris (born September 5, 1965) is a United
Kingdom|British comedy writer, satire|satirist and
radio disc jockey|DJ.

Morris was born in Cambridgeshire; both his
parents were doctors. He was educated at
Stonyhurst College, a Roman Catholic boys'
boarding school in Lancashire, and then read
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
parody|parodies. On leaving Radio Cambridgeshire
he worked at BBC Radio Bristol and Greater London
Radio (GLR). Both stations fired him for on-air
pranks, and for a time he was even banned from
entering the BBC site at Bristol after letting off
a helium canister during a live news broadcast..

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 reworked for television as
Channel 4's Jam (TV series)|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, this time
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 pedophilia|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 Estelle
Morris, 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 List of premature
obituaries|falsely claimed on the radio that Jimmy
Savile and Conservative MP Michael Heseltine had
died; had a show cancelled mid-broadcast when he
played a scurrilous cut-up of the Archbishop of
Canterbury's funeral oration for Diana, Princess
of Wales; 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 hops glamorising of
guns and violence
http://www.koekie.org.uk/funnel/tdt/tdt2.html
(transcript of episode)

In 2002 Morris ventured into film with the short
film|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' latest project is a sitcom entitled Nathan
Barley, based on the character created by Charlie
Brooker for his website TVGoHome. Co-written by
Brooker and Morris, the show's first episode was
broadcast in February 2005.

==Other Information==

A significant feature of Morris's output is his
music. He often composes and performs all
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 his music.

In 2003 he was listed in The Observer as one of
the Observer's 50 funniest|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.  His output since 2001
has contained little new material, consisting
mainly of recycled material (dating back to 1994)
reconfigured in a "darker" style. He is currently
said to be eager to return to radio - news
welcomed by a large part of his considerable
fanbase. 

== Works ==

* No Known Cure (August 1987- March 1989, BBC
Radio Bristol)
* The Chris Morris Christmas Show (25 December
1990, BBC Radio 1)
* Chris Morris (1988-1993, BBC GLR)
* On The Hour (1991-1992, BBC Radio 4)
* Loose Ends (radio)|Loose Ends (1989, BBC Radio
4)
* Why Bother? (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)
* Big Train (1999, BBC 2) Various sketches.
* Second Class Male/Time To Go (1999, newspaper
column for The Observer)
* Jam (TV series)|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 MP3|Bushwhacked (2002)
* My Wrongs 8245 - 8249 and 117 (2002, short film)
* Nathan Barley (2005, Channel 4)

==External links==
*http://www.thesmokehammer.com/ The Smoke Hammer -
A site by Chris Morris
*imdb name|id=0606439|name=Christopher Morris
*http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk CookdandBombd - A
site devoted to the work of Chris Morris and his
collaborators
*http://www.koekie.org.uk/funnel/ Glebe's Thrift
Funnel - A site about Chris Morris
*http://www.trashbat.co.ck/ 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.