''Blue Jam'' was an
ambient,
surreal dark comedy
Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...
and
horror radio programme created and directed by
Chris Morris. It was broadcast on
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
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
Kevin Eldon (born 2 October 1959) 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' ...
,
Julia Davis
Julia Charlotte L. Davis (born 25 August 1966) is an English actress, comedian, director and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy '' Nighty Night'' (2004–2005) and the comedies ''Hunderby'' (2012–2015) and ...
,
Mark Heap
Mark Heap (born 13 May 1957) is an English 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 '' ...
, David Cann and
Amelia Bullmore
Amelia Mary Bullmore (born 31 January 1964) is an English actress, screenwriter and playwright. She is known for her roles in ''Coronation Street'' (1990–1992), ''I'm Alan Partridge'' (2002), '' Ashes to Ashes'' (2008–2009), '' Twenty Twelve ...
, 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
Graham Linehan () (born 22 May 1968) is an Irish television writer and anti-transgender activist. He created or co-created the sitcoms ''Father Ted'' (1995–1998), ''Black Books'' (2000–2004) and '' The IT Crowd'' (2006–2013). He has also ...
,
Arthur Mathews,
Peter Baynham
Peter Baynham is a Welsh screenwriter and performer. He is best known for appearing in a series of comedic Pot Noodle television adverts in the 1990s. His work largely represents collaborations with comedy figures such as Armando Iannucci, Steve ...
,
David Quantick
David Quantick (born 14 May 1961) is an English novelist, comedy writer and critic, who has worked as a journalist and screenwriter. A former freelance writer for the music magazine '' NME'', his writing credits have included ''On the Hour'', '' ...
,
Jane Bussmann, Robert Katz and the cast.
The programme was adapted into the TV series ''
Jam
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and ente ...
'', which aired in 2000. All episodes of ''Blue Jam'' are currently available for streaming and download on the
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
and Youtube.
Production
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."
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.
Format and style
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
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and ente ...
'', 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.
Common recurring sketches
*Doctor (played by David Cann): "The Doctor" is a seemingly "normal" physician working in a standard British medical practice. However, he has a habit of treating his patients in bizarre and often disturbing ways, such as prescribing heroin for a cold, making a man with a headache jump up and down to make his penis swing (while mirroring the patient's bewildered jumping himself) and making a patient leave and go into the next room so he can examine him over the telephone. His name is revealed to be Michael Perlin in several sketches.
*The Monologue Man (played by
Chris Morris): Short stories, often up to 10 minutes in length, written from the perspective of a lonely and socially inept man. Each story usually involves the protagonist's acquaintance Suzy in some capacity.
*Michael Alexander St. John: A parody of hyperbolic and pun-laden radio presenting, St. John presents items such as the top 10 singles charts and the weekend's gigs.
*Bad Sex: Short clips of two lovers (played by
Julia Davis
Julia Charlotte L. Davis (born 25 August 1966) is an English actress, comedian, director and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy '' Nighty Night'' (2004–2005) and the comedies ''Hunderby'' (2012–2015) and ...
and
Kevin Eldon
Kevin Eldon (born 2 October 1959) 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' ...
) making increasingly bizarre erotic requests of one another, such as to "shit your leg off" and "make your spunk come out green".
*The Interviewer (played by Chris Morris): conducting real interviews with celebrities such as
Andrew Morton and
Jerry Springer
Gerald Norman Springer (born February 13, 1944) is a British-American broadcaster, journalist, actor, producer, former lawyer, and politician. He hosted the tabloid talk show '' Jerry Springer'' between September 30, 1991 and July 26, 2018, an ...
, Morris confuses and mocks his subjects with ambiguous and odd questions.
*Mr. Ventham (played by
Mark Heap
Mark Heap (born 13 May 1957) is an English 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 '' ...
): An extremely awkward man who requires one-to-one consultations with Mr. Reilly (played by David Cann), who seems to be his psychologist, for the most banal of matters.
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.
Radio stings
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
Christopher David Moyles (born 22 February 1974) is an English radio and television presenter, author and presenter of '' The Chris Moyles Show'' on Radio X.
Previously he has presented '' The Chris Moyles Show'' on BBC Radio 1 from 2004 to ...
,
Jo Whiley
Johanne Whiley-Morton (born 4 July 1965), better known by her professional name Jo Whiley, is an English radio DJ and television presenter. She was the host of the long-running weekday later weekend '' Jo Whiley Show'' on BBC Radio 1. She curre ...
and
Mark Goodier
Mark Goodier (born 9 June 1961) is a British radio disc jockey best known for his time on BBC Radio 1 between 1987 and 2002. He had two spells presenting the station's Top 40 singles chart, from 1990 to 1992 and from 1995 until 2002. He also h ...
, 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.
Episodes
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.
*Series 1 – (Fridays) 14 November 1997 to 19 December 1997, from 00:00 to 01:00.
*Series 2 – (Fridays) 27 March 1998 to 1 May 1998, from 01:00 to 02:00.
*Series 3 – (Thursdays) 21 January 1999 to 25 February 1999, from 00:00 to 01:00.
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.
Music
''Blue Jam'' features songs, generally of a
downtempo
Downtempo (or downbeat) is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may b ...
nature, interspersed between (and sometimes during) sketches. Artists featured includes
Massive Attack
Massive Attack are an English trip hop collective formed in 1988 in Bristol by Robert "3D" Del Naja, Adrian "Tricky" Thaws, Andrew "Mushroom" Vowles and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall.
The debut Massive Attack album '' Blue Lines'' was releas ...
,
Air
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
,
Morcheeba
Morcheeba is an English electronic band formed in the mid-1990s with founding members vocalist Skye Edwards and the brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey. They mix influences from trip hop, rock, folk rock and downtempo, and have produced ten regula ...
,
The Chemical Brothers
The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo formed by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons in Manchester in 1989. They were pioneers (along with the Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method, and other acts) in bringing the big beat gen ...
,
Björk,
Aphex Twin,
Everything But the Girl
Everything but the Girl (occasionally referred to as EBTG) are an English musical duo formed in Kingston upon Hull in 1982, consisting of lead singer and occasional guitarist Tracey Thorn and guitarist, keyboardist, producer and singer Ben Wat ...
and
Dimitri from Paris
Dimitri from Paris (born Dimitrios Yerasimos, el, Δημήτριος Γεράσιμος; 27 October 1963) is a French music producer and DJ of Greek descent. His musical influences are rooted in 1970s funk and disco sounds that spawned contempo ...
, as well as various non-electronic artists including
Sly and the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone was an American band from San Francisco. Active from 1966 to 1983, it was pivotal in the development of funk, soul, rock, and psychedelic music. Its core line-up was led by singer-songwriter, record producer, and multi ...
,
Serge Gainsbourg,
The Cardigans
The Cardigans is a Swedish rock band formed in Jönköping, Sweden, in 1992 by guitarist Peter Svensson, bassist Magnus Sveningsson, drummer Bengt Lagerberg, keyboardist Lars-Olof Johansson and lead singer Nina Persson. Post-hiatus shows sin ...
and
Eels
Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...
.
Reception
''Blue Jam'' was favourably reviewed on several occasions by ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' and also received a positive review by ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
''.
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." ''
Hot Press
''Hot Press'' is a fortnightly music and politics magazine based in Dublin, Ireland, founded in June 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes.
History
''Hot Press'' was founded in June 1977 by Niall Stokes, who co ...
'' called it "as odd as comedy gets".
CD release
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
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and ente ...
''.
; Track listing
# "Blue Jam Intro"
# "Doc Phone"
# "Lamacq sting"
# "4 ft Car"
# "Suicide Journalist"
# "Acupuncture"
# "Bad Sex"
# "Mayo Sting"
# "Unflustered Parents"
# "Moyles Sting"
# "TV Lizards"
# "Doc Cock"
# "Hobbs Sting"
# "Morton Interview"
# "Fix It Girl"
# "Porn"
# "Kids Party"
# "Club News"
# "Whiley Sting"
# "Little Girl Balls"
# "Blue Jam Outro"
# "www.bishopslips.com" (not a real track)
Related shows
''Blue Jam'' was later made for television and broadcast on
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
as ''
Jam
Jam is a type of fruit preserve.
Jam or Jammed may also refer to:
Other common meanings
* A firearm malfunction
* Block signals
** Radio jamming
** Radar jamming and deception
** Mobile phone jammer
** Echolocation jamming
Arts and ente ...
''. 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
Joe Frank (August 19, 1938 – January 15, 2018) was a French-born American writer, teacher, and radio performer best known for his often philosophical, humorous, surrealist, and sometimes absurd monologues and radio dramas he recorded often i ...
did on the
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
affiliate station,
KCRW
KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to program ...
, in
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing t ...
.
References
External links
*
''Blue Jam''on the BBC Comedy site
* – series 1 repeats on
BBC Radio 4 Extra
{{Authority control
1997 radio programme debuts
BBC Radio comedy programmes