Blue Jam was an ambient

Ambient music

Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...

 radio comedy

Radio comedy

Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve sitcom elements, sketches and various types of comedy found on other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some...

 programme created and directed by Chris Morris

Chris Morris (satirist)

Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...

. It aired on BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 in the early hours of the morning from 1997 to 1999.

The programme gained cult status due to its unique mix of surreal monologue

Monologue

In theatre, a monologue is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts aloud, though sometimes also to directly address another character or the audience. Monologues are common across the range of dramatic media...

, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, synthesised voices, heavily edited broadcasts and recurring sketches. It featured the vocal talents of Kevin Eldon, Julia Davis

Julia Davis

Julia Davis is an English comedy writer and performer, best known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night.-Background:...

, Mark Heap

Mark Heap

Mark Heap is an English actor. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry...

, David Cann

David Cann

David Cann is a British actor who has had many roles in theatre and television.He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1973 and spent many years working in theatre, including various Shakespeare plays before eventually branching out into television, including roles in the BBC...

 and Amelia Bullmore

Amelia Bullmore

Amelia Bullmore is an English actress and writer. She was born in London and studied drama at the University of Manchester. Bullmore started working as an actor but turned to writing in 1995...

. Morris himself delivered disturbing monologues, one of which was revamped and made into the BAFTA

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...

-winning short film, My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117.

Writers who contributed to the programme included Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan is an Irish television writer, actor, comedian and director who, often in partnership with Arthur Mathews, has written or co-written a number of popular television comedies...

, Arthur Mathews

Arthur Mathews (writer)

Arthur Mathews is an Irish comedy writer and actor who, often with writing partner Graham Linehan, has either written or contributed to a number of popular television comedies, most notably Father Ted. He is a graduate of the Dublin Institute of Technology...

, Peter Baynham

Peter Baynham

Peter Baynham is a screenwriter and a British comedian, writer, and performer. He often collaborates with Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris and has worked with Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. He is first heard on Morris' early radio DJ slots, often going out to places...

, David Quantick

David Quantick

David Quantick is a freelance journalist, writer and critic who specialises in music and comedy.-Career history:...

, Jane Bussmann

Jane Bussmann

Jane Bussmann is a comedian and author who has written for television and radio. Her credits include The Fast Show, Smack the Pony, Brass Eye, Jam and South Park, as well as the radio series Bussmann and Quantick Kingsize with David Quantick...

, Robert Katz and the cast.

Format and style

Each episode opened (and closed) with a short spoken introduction (delivered by Morris) describing, in surreal, broken language, various bizarre feelings and situations, set to ambient music interspersed with short clips of other songs.

Common recurring sketches

• Doctor (played by David Cann
  David Cann
  David Cann is a British actor who has had many roles in theatre and television.He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1973 and spent many years working in theatre, including various Shakespeare plays before eventually branching out into television, including roles in the BBC...
  
  ): "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 in order to make his penis swing (while mirroring the patient's bewildered jumping himself) and making a patient leave and go in to the next room so he can examine him over the telephone.
• The Monologue Man (played by Chris Morris
  Chris Morris (satirist)
  Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...
  
  ): Short stories, often up to 10 minutes in length, written from the perspective of a lonely and socially inept man. Invariably involving the man's acquaintance 'Susie', but in different capacities each time, Morris paints a picture of insanity with sober and reasonable clarity.
• 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.
• Monged Sex: Short clips of two lovers making increasingly bizarre erotic requests of one another, such as "shit[ting] your leg off" and "mak[ing] your spunk come out green".
• The Interviewer (played by Chris Morris): conducting real interviews with celebrities such as Andrew Morton
  Andrew Morton (writer)
  Andrew David Morton is a former British Fleet Street journalist, a notable writer and biographer.Before moving into a career in journalism, he attended grammar school, then studied history at the University of Sussex....
  
   and Jerry Springer
  Jerry Springer
  Gerald Norman "Jerry" Springer is a British-born American television presenter, best known as host of the tabloid talk show The Jerry Springer Show since its debut in 1991...
  
  , Morris confuses and mocks his subjects with ambiguous and odd questions.
• Mr. Ventham (played by Mark Heap
  Mark Heap
  Mark Heap is an English actor. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry...
  
  ): An extremely awkward man who requires one-to-one consultations with what seems to be his psychologist for the most banal of matters.

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

Chris Moyles

Christopher David Moyles is an English radio and television presenter and author, who currently presents The Chris Moyles Show on BBC Radio 1 and Chris Moyles' Quiz Night on Channel 4....

, Jo Whiley

Jo Whiley

Johanne "Jo" Whiley is a British radio disc jockey and television presenter. She was the host of the long running weekday Jo Whiley Show on Radio 1.-Early life and education:...

 and Mark Goodier

Mark Goodier

-Early career:Mark Goodier was born in Rhodesia . His family moved to the UK when he was a child, eventually settling in Scotland. He was educated at George Heriot's School, in Edinburgh. He became a mobile DJ in Edinburgh and then joined local station Radio Forth at the age of 19...

.

Derivative shows

Blue Jam was later made for television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 and broadcast on Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 as Jam

Jam (TV series)

Jam was a postmodern British dark comedy series created, written and directed by Chris Morris, and broadcast on Channel 4 during March and April 2000...

. It utilised 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.

In place of closing credits

Closing credits

Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...

 the show had the website address of jamcredits.com http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/J/jam/credits_ie.html

Blue Jam CD

A CD of some of the best Blue Jam sketches was released on 23 October 2000 on Warp Records

Warp Records

Warp, commonly referred to as Warp Records, is a pioneering independent British record label, founded in Sheffield in 1989, notable for discovering some of the more enduring artists in electronic music....

. Although the CD claims to have 22 tracks, the last one, "www.bishopslips.com," is a reference to the "Bishopslips" sketch. Most of the sketches on the CD were remade for Jam

Jam (TV series)

Jam was a postmodern British dark comedy series created, written and directed by Chris Morris, and broadcast on Channel 4 during March and April 2000...

.

CD tracks

1. Blue Jam Intro
2. Doc Phone
3. Lamacq sting
4. 4 ft Car
5. Suicide Journalist
6. Acupuncture
7. Bad Sex
8. Mayo Sting
9. Unflustered Parents
10. Moyles Sting
11. TV Lizards
12. Doc Cock
13. Hobbs Sting
14. Morton interview
15. Fix It Girl
16. Porn
17. Kids Party
18. Club News
19. Whiley Sting
20. Little Girl Balls
21. Blue Jam Outro
22. www.bishopslips.com (Not a real track)

External links

• Blue Jam on the BBC website.