Blue Jam, devised and produced by Chris Morris, and written with Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews and Robert Katz, has arguably made more advances in terms of what’s permissible, in terms of language and subject matter, than any other comedy programme in the BBC’s history - it is, for example, the first BBC comedy show where the word ‘cunt’ has been openly used, although it is questionable as to whether such instances were officially sanctioned. In general, the themes and obsessions permitted in the series seem out of keeping with the kind of censorship to which other comedy shows on the station were subject but the low-key nature of the broadcasts has meant that Radio 1 has, to date, never received a complaint about the programme.

One of Blue Jam’s actors has stated that Radio 1 is ‘run by fuckwits’, and that the inclusion of certain material is due to the management’s ignorance over what is normally tolerated. Morris’ broadcasts, after all, tend to be the result of his knowledge and experience of the medium in which he works, principally his ability to use insider tactics to exploit loop-holes. It is therefore entirely possible that the passing of the word ‘cunt’ is accidental, the result of hazy politicising by Radio 1’s management.

At this point, a repeat of Show 1 was faded up (about a quarter of the way through, in the middle of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s ‘Bonnie & Clyde’), and this occupied the remaining 45 minutes of the timeslot. This repeat had presumably been put on stand-by, and had been running parallel to the broadcast.

One of our colleagues phoned Radio 1 on the night in question. They got through to a crusty, colonel type who muttered, ‘Chris Morris - what’s he up to now?’. It is entirely possible that this voice was Morris himself, which further clouds the issue.

Morris wanted the show (featuring 45 minutes of still unbroadcast material) to be transmitted intact during the repeat run a few months later. Radio 1 objected once again, meaning Show 1 was wheeled in to be broadcast for the fourth time. When the second series began, Morris - uncharacteristically tired of, and jaded by, Radio 1’s spinelessness - ceased battling, and simply took his lawyer’s advice to broadcast a censored version of the show as the opening programme.

The offending item was the first sketch to be played (in full) as part of a special 70-minute compilation of the first two series presented to an audience in a pitch-black room at the Battersea Arts Centre on 30/5/98. It is unclear, however, whether Morris contributed anything other than his blessing to this event. Indeed, the material (which was never divorced from its original backing music) showed no evidence of being taken from either rushes or alternate edits. There was also no previously-untransmitted material, despite claims to the contrary in the BAC’s brochure. The exception to this was the ‘Archbishop’ section, which definitely originated from the source tape rather than the off-air transmission, containing as it did the following extra lines:

The Archbishop’s words are drowned in echo towards the end - this could be indicative that there was yet further material to which the BAC did not have access, or it could simply have been their way of segueing subtly into the following item. The latter is more likely, as heavy echo was used elsewhere in the compilation to cover up otherwise ugly juxtapositions of music.

The 'Blue Jam' cast list.

2. Chris Morris produced an ambiguous press-release to publicise Blue Jam which omitted a cast list, a decision which extended to a lack of credits in the broadcasts themselves. As well as the names above, Blue Jam also utilised the services of other uncredited actors including Phil Cornwell, Sally Phillips and Peter Baynham. With the exception of Michael St John and David Cann ('Now, what seems to be the problem..?'), the above cast also form the Big Train acting team alongside the pointless Simon Pegg. Morris, who directed the Big Train pilot, jumped ship before the series itself - the pilot was duly plundered, and Morris' sketches (e.g. 'Jockies' and 'The Artist Formerly Known As Prince', the latter of which features a Morris voice-over) were spread thinly across all six programmes.

1. A television pilot of Blue Jam was recorded sometime in the summer/autumn of 1998, between the second and third radio series. (For this reason, Morris was unable to continue his work on BBC2’s Big Train, filming for which occupied the middle part of 1998.) This pilot featured the ‘Synchronised cocks’ Doctor sketch, later used in Jam Show 3, the ‘sex requests’ duologue (‘Make your spunk turn green...’, etc, used in Show 6) and a sketch about an ambassador who, having heard that his entire family has been kidnapped, refuses to do anything about it. At the time, it was not clear whether the series would find a home on BBC2 or Channel 4, fuelling rumours (even after Jam had been transmitted) that Morris was working on two separate projects.

2. It is possible that a version of the ‘Rothko the dog’ sketch - originally a monologue in Blue Jam Series 2, Show 3 (23/4/98) - was recorded for Jam. This lengthy piece, one of the strongest monologues in the series (and one which Morris liked enough to feature in the ‘live’ Blue Jam broadcast at Battersea Arts Centre), featured a man being taunted by a talking canine who turns out to be something of a logician; in the sketch, Rothko makes Morris’ narrator place a collar around his neck and, putting the lead in its mouth, takes its owner for a walk. In the first Jam episode, there is a brief shot of this scene being enacted, just before the closing Doctor sketch. There is also a shot of a dog’s head before the TalkBack insignia at the close of Show 3. Was this sketch perhaps removed due to ‘problems’? Or did Morris simply not believe it could be accommodated within the 25-minute constraints of the programme?

3. The sketch where two parents react casually to their infant son’s disappearance - originally in Blue Jam Series 1, Show 3 (27/11/97) - was cut slightly for its appearance in Jam show 5. A section of the dialogue, after the father had received a phone call from the police, originally ran:

FATHER (DAVID CANN) OK, thanks a lot. Cheers. (Replaces phone)

MOTHER (JULIA DAVIS) What was that, love?

FATHER We’ll have to pick him up and bury him.

MOTHER (Surprised at the inconvenience) Oh. Did they say what he’d been doing?

FATHER Well it sounds like he was buggered quite a lot and then strangled.

MOTHER (Tuts) That sounds a bit much.

FATHER Yeah, apparently it was that bloody Mike Holland that did it. (Thinks for a moment) I’ll have a word with him next time I see him.

MOTHER Yeah, well you can tell him I’m...pretty pissed off with him as well.

FATHER (Incredulous) Mike Holland!

MOTHER Well. Always thought he was a bit of a twit.

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On Jam, however, we get this non-sequitur:

MOTHER Did they say what had happened?

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[NOTE: There is no jump in the underscore, suggesting this cut was made before the music was added.]

It’s likely that this was self-censorship. Morris had included the Blue Jamsketch in the Battersea Arts Centre selection and was incensed and disappointed by the audience’s response. ‘They weren’t supposed to be laughing at a child being buggered - that’s not the point!’ he apparently bellowed after the show. Morris was arguing, quite rightly, that - as with most Blue Jam sketches - the comedy rested on the characters’ inappropriate reactions rather than the subject matter alone; the ‘buggery’ line had indeed resulted in a substantial guffaw from the audience (although, to be fair, they’d pissed themselves even more at the ‘I’ll have a word with him’ line).

4. The jury’s still out on whether the ‘Maria’ character (the little girl who arrives to ‘deal with’ a dead body, Pulp Fiction style, in Jam show 4) was over-dubbed. On Blue Jam Julia Davis had played this character (and most other child parts in the series), and - like Doon MacKichan playing infant genius Simon Fisher in Knowing Me Knowing You - Morris was making no secret of the fact that it was obviously an adult in the role. On the TV version, child actor Elizabeth Staines doesn’t on the whole look like she’s miming to her lines, but her voice sounds rather too close to the original Davis incarnation. However, one line (‘It was the fucking boiler, now fuck off!’) was delivered with Staines’ back to camera, and seems reminiscent of Linda Blair’s ‘Fuck me!’ overdubs in The Exorcist: i.e., her arm movements/gestures seem out of sync with the words she is supposed to be saying.

[NOTE: Early preview tapes of Jam (shipped week beginning 13/3/00) featured Mr Pither-esque ‘Scene missing’ captions at various points. This could well have been an attempt to fool journalists into believing that this was a ‘dangerous’, not-yet-ossified programme, the edit of which would be finalised as close to transmission as possible. In any case, complete tapes were despatched the following week, and these were exactly as transmitted. Ours featured an old episode of King Of The Hill at the end, which was nice. Oddly, there was no preview tape sent out (to anyone) for Show 3, fuelling the rumour that a sketch featuring ‘Rothgo’ was indeed being kept under wraps pending imminent censure.]

Jaaaaam…