Abstract

The primary focus of this chapter is 'Blue Jam' (1997-99), Morris’s three-season ‘ambient’ music/comedy series for BBC Radio. Blue Jam combines music, comedy sketches and monologues with an ambient soundtrack. Within this, the programmes utilize an extraordinarily controlled pace in an exploration of social satire and taboo through abstract, even dream-like, humour. For a radio scholar such as Tim Crook, Morris’s provocative radio work warrants comparison with Orson Welles. Furthermore, it could be argued that Morris’s unique development of the concept of the soundscape in Blue Jam represents an apotheosis of both audio comedy and, paradoxically, the alienating essence of the medium (radio’s ‘disembodied voice’). This will be explored through a close analysis of specific examples from the three series.