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[Nil JAM (18) 300min 00000

oes Chris Morris have a D problem with his doctor?

Judging by a large chunk of the content in Jam, the media terrorist must have had some rickety diagnoses from the local GP in his time. Certainly, as an adolescent boy Morris had what an old friend described as ‘volcanic' acne, so perhaps that’s where it comes from. Either way, medics are joined in the Jam collection of grotesques and unfortunates by abortion victims receiving tiny coffins as gifts, boring women who turn into serial killers in a warped way of gaining companionship, little girls who commit savage murder and TV repairmen who may or may not be lizard aliens. It's not exactly My Family.

What Jam actually purports to be has never been too clear. In actuality, it had its painful genesis on Radio 1, with the murky lab experiment that was Blue Jam, a late-night ambient trip accompanied by what sounded like comedy sketches. Except they weren't particularly funny nor were they scenes that you would call structured; just bits of floaty, weird moments dredged from an unsafe mind.

At Jam’s core are thoughts and deeds which everyone feels occasionally popping onto their backburner, but most people feel so repelled that they’ll attempt to block them out indefinitely. Morris merely focuses all the harder on those images, desperately envisaging how comedy can sprout. When the inevitable conclusion is that some things just cannot be made funny, he'll find a way of portraying them in

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107 LIE, Swept Away

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108 Larry David, Vampire Killers

any case. This is what makes his stuff so disturbing. If we can your spanking new DVD you get all six episodes from the self-censor the darker compartments of the mind, to avoid series along with a load of extras which have the Morris thinking about the really bad stuff in life, so can Chris Morris. stamp of non-conformity all over them. You can, should you He simply chooses not to. wish, watch one episode which has been shrunk

While Brass Eye showed that its into a small rhombus which bounces around your creator has an unerring eye for pricking screen; or maybe you'd just like to see the first 19 the pomposity of public figureheads, minutes of another before it stops. There is also a Jam proved that he is just as menu entitled ‘undeleted scenes'. A genuine extra is comfortable dabblin away on the - - - a vaguely amusing Adam 8. Joe spoo o 3 am fringes of acceptability. We laugh doctor scene. ‘lt's dark! It’s confrontationalll‘ uproariously when he fools Bernard screams Adam (or is it Joe?) when they discuss . . . Manning into a crazed rant about a big no, it’s best not to say really. yellow Czechoslovakian drug called Since Jam's broadcasting in the summer of 2000, ‘cake’, but our reaction is less certain when we watch a Chris Morris has made the Brass Eye Special and a short film, sketch involving a man accused of being unfaithful by his My Wrongs with Paddy Considine. What mad terrain he tearful partner and, when he replies that it meant nothing, ventures off into next is never an easy thing to predict. indeed that it was actually a rape, she is relieved and they Despite what the Daily Mail will tell you, our TV sets are far cuddle one another lovingly. Still Game it is not. duller without him. (Brian Donaldson)

Right, that’s the theory - what about the practical? Well, on I Ami/able from x/C/xc/lgmmg/ .1 on Mon 2;; A” {)r/Cry] 5 19.7,;

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