Chris Morris’s Last Tape

Those are the subheadlines. God I wish they weren’t

(This piece originally appeared on my Substack, Artless. Subscribe to that here.)

Other than being one of the last unfallen British 90s comedians, what sets apart Chris Morris? Punking celebrities, politicians and the public, satirising news media have been done before and since. What else makes Morris Morris?

In my Best of ’22 post, I quoted Borges calling Joyce, “a millionaire of voices and styles”. So too are Morris & co. From radio show On The Hour onwards, through to The Day Today, Brass Eye, Nathan Barley, and even the US-set Veep, theirs is a comedy that’s developed its own English idiolect, as distinctive a verbal signature as Martin Amis’s or Iris Murdoch’s.

People like to quote comedies especially, in part to stake out their sensibility and sense of humour. This can give it a competitive edge; see the hipper-than-thou oneupmanship of Chris Finch and David Brent in The Office. But quotations are also citing evidence: of why something is good. Here’s a sample of the consistently good Morrisese, as well as a survey of its many voices and styles:

• Most well known is Morris’s Paxmanesque news anchor, ranging from low-level contempt to blimpish outrage, like how he berates his colleague Peter O’Hanra-hanrahan…