Disgusting Bliss by Lucian Randall

Author:Lucian Randall [Randall, Lucian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857200907
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

8

BLATANTLY HIDING THE GROUND

THE CONCEPT BEHIND FEEDBACK REPORTS FORMED THE backbone of Chris Morris’s shows from his first starring role in No Known Cure all the way to Brass Eye. Their mischievous blend of elaborate fabrication and mockery flavoured everything he did. He could tell with a glance on the street who would provide a good response to what he made sound like a pressing social question of the day without actually making the slightest bit of sense. When he gave the idea its first outing on television in an obscure and shortlived 1990 satellite TV show called Up Yer News, his high hit rate intrigued director Peter Kessler. He asked how Morris knew which member of the public would give the response he was looking for. ‘Just stand and wait and watch,’ Morris told him, ‘and when the right one comes along, you know.’ Kessler says, ‘He was very, very insistent indeed about picking the right people to talk to . . . And he basically stepped out and went for the right people.’

‘And if they’re unknown, it moves the focus from the person being set up to what the fuck is being said,’ Morris explained in 1994. ‘Part of the point is the sheer randomness of those people – from vicars to builders. You’re undermining any talking head on TV by showing them talking bollocks with apparent authority. And the whole of the media is a deception, everything that happens is a deception, cloaked in coded statements – a pay rise, a sacking, whatever. I can’t stand that high-handed attitude that there’s a proper way to behave. Everyone’s fucking about. You’re just displaying it.’77

Having refined his technique on the streets of Bristol and London, Morris used it in his celebrity interviews. Of everything he did, they attracted the most attention, whether praise or criticism. They were an exposure of sloppy thinking and self-promotion. Or they were cruel and cheap. His anger was scouring. Or he was a misanthrope who preyed mercilessly on those who gave their time to talk to him. Morris saw the set-up as very straightforward: ‘In everything I do there are enough clues, you’re challenging the situation to collapse by getting stupider. They’re given a fair chance to say “fuck off”,’ he said.’78 Few people did so at the time, although famous victims used their access to the media to say it loudly and publicly after they saw the shows go out. Accusations of unfairness dominated the headlines, obscuring what made his verbal traps so effective – their lining of rich and imaginative detail.

Virtually every premise Morris offered had at least one element in it that looked as if it might be true. And that was generally good enough for most people to overlook the fact that his questions were nothing more than gateways to a mad world – albeit one with its own internal and consistent logic. The breathtaking aspect of the interviews was the readiness with which people stepped into the alternate existence with him.

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