We’re big fans of Chris Morris here at hecklerspray.
The comedic gent behind The Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam has produced some of the most genuinely innovative and hilarious British comedy of the last 20 years. In fact, we’re such fans that we’ll even forgive him for that slightly rubbish Nathan Barley series that no-one watched a couple of years back.
It’s always with a tinge of excitement, then – which is a big thing round these parts – that we receive news on what Chris Morris is up to next.
Apparently he’s making something about terrorists.
Well … kind of. Talk has been rife for some time now about Morris and a possible ‘suicide bomber’ project, something bolstered by the fact that Morris has been witnessed attending an academic seminar on how the 7/7 Bombers were “like pissed off, pompous, narcissistic adolescents, blowing themselves up in something like a more extreme version of self-harming.”
Ideal topic matter for a big old satirical hoedown, you might think. Yet the folks over at the excellent Cookd And Bombd – where this information has been gleaned – have more details to share:
There seemed to be some uncertainty over whether it was a TV show or a film…it’s both as it turns out, a film for TV, with Morris writing and directing again. It’s apparently about a bunch of Pakistani kids, and follows them as they work and play, while exploring their relation to the culture that surrounds them, their beliefs, and their sense of heritage. The brief description makes it sound really interesting, although the casting breakdown notably doesn’t feature the word “comedy” in it at all.
If nothing else, it certainly sounds interesting. And we’ll take ‘interesting’ over ‘skull-splittingly awful’ any day of the week.
Read More (and check out the cool Peter Cook clips they’ve dug up):
The voice of counter argument says
He hasn’t been funny for a decade – at least now he’s trying not to be
Abi says
Oi! The only reason Nathan Barley wasn’t considered funny is because nobody watched it. It was no less insightful and topical than Morris’s earlier stuff, and was no less funny either. IMHO.
filthish says
Nathan Barley was funny but you have to stop eating in the comedy equivalent of a greasy spoon! Barley was humour you had to think about, it carries an important social message about THE RISE OF THE IDIOTS. It says something about these new-media tossers who’ve never done a decent day’s work in their lives and think they’re cool because their site is #1 on Google for the phrase “fat people falling down”.
I know because I am a new-media tosser and struggle everyday to think of actual, valuable, informative content for my websites. While everyone else just posts videos with titles like ‘Drunk Parisian Tramp Covered In Diarrhea, Begs For Money Outside The Louvre; American College Kids Point And Laugh’. They become an celebrated internet-phenomenon while my only fan is a 47yr old man from Sidcup called Gerald.
Barley was a brilliant commentary of the world today, how stupid it is and how easily we allowed ourselves to become stupid.
Just because ANYONE, ANYWHERE can broadcast ANYTHING nowdays; it doesnt mean it’s worth watching/reading. Dan Ashcroft’s struggle to retain his dignity in the face a brain-dead public and vegetative colleagues is SO FUNNY. Especially when he gets sucked into stupid, ridiculous twaddle like COCK-MUFF-BUMHOLE – just like the rest of us! Especially funny is the fact the archetypal IDIOT he is raging against is such an IDIOT that he thinks they are friends.
In every episode you see him run face-first into an invisible wall of dumb, never expecting it and never beating it. That mental anguish is funnier than any physical pain Jackass or Dirty Sanchez have ever filmed.
P Robertson says
Barley was so close to being a fly-on-the-wall documentary on Lodon media types!
g b large says
here here! nathan barley was great tv, no question. lots of layers… loads of stuff hidden away in the background that you only pick up on after reapeated viewings. cant wait for morris’ next one!