Radio 4 Extra to broadcast series one of programme which courted controversy with sketches, monologues and stings

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

It was described as a perverse sound garden, a lo-fi anti-comedy featuring jokes about dead children and sexually exploitative doctors to an ambient soundtrack of Portishead and Brian Eno.

Now Chris Morris's Radio 1 comedy Blue Jam is to be repeated on Radio 4's sister station, Radio 4 Extra for the first time since it was first broadcast in 1997.

A pitch-black series of sketches, monologues and radio "stings", which had fun at the expense of DJs such as Chris Moyles and Jo Whiley, Blue Jam largely avoided controversy because it went out almost unnoticed, broadcast in the early hours of the morning.

With an all-star cast including Julia Davis, Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap and Amelia Bullmore, and co-written by Father Ted creators Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, it went out in the wake of the controversy over another Chris Morris show, Brass Eye, on Channel 4.

Interviewed in 1998, Morris said the show was a response to the 18 months' work he had put in on the Channel 4 satire.

"It was so singular, and it came from a mood, quite a desolate mood. I had this misty, autumnal, boggy mood anyway, so I just went with that," said Morris.

"But no doubt getting to the end of something like Brass Eye, where you've been forced to be a sort of surrogate lawyer, well, that's the most creatively stifling thing you could possibly do."

A double Sony award winner, the show made for difficult but frequently hilarious listening. However, it will not be to everyone's taste. Across its three series, Blue Jam featured sketches about a couple of laid-back parents who are barely interested when their six-year-old child is murdered, an acupuncturist who uses nine inch nails, and a porn star epidemic called "the gush".

The three series – Radio 4 Extra will broadcast the first five episodes of series one – were later turned into a Channel 4 TV show, Jam, which fell foul of the Broadcasting Standards Council, the Ofcom of its day, which said it "pushed at the boundaries of acceptability".

Morris, who gained a reputation for hoaxing celebrities into talking nonsense, such as his fictitious drug, "cake", had previously caused controversy on Radio 1 for persuading MPs to comment on the fictitious death of Michael Heseltine.

Morris, who went on to create his most controversial project of them all, the Brass Eye paedophile special, later made a Bafta-winning short film, co-wrote Channel 4 sitcom Nathan Barley and wrote and directed the film, Four Lions.

He will be back on the small screen in the next series of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle on BBC2.

Caroline Raphael, commissioning editor of Radio 4 Extra, said: "Radio 4 Extra is all about bringing the best of BBC's radio archive to our listeners and Blue Jam as a cult comedy series from the 90s most certainly is one of the programmes that we're glad we can give a second outing for.

"It will be broadcast as part our evening comedy offer and we hope that in addition to many of the old fans of the show, it will also find some new listeners when it's broadcast on Radio 4 Extra."

Blue Jam will return on Friday on Radio 4 Extra at 11pm. It is one of several classic cult shows from the BBC Archive to return to the digital station in coming weeks, including The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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