Its original broadcast was postponed by a nervous Channel 4, it led to questions in the House of Commons and to a (Labour) culture secretary professing herself “shocked and appalled” on the 10 O’Clock News. It is also “one of the greatest comedies ever shown on television,” says David Walliams, who on Sunday night hosted a screening of a film about the making of Chris Morris’s legendary series Brass Eye – 25 years old this year. Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes splices together off-cuts and outtakes from the show, and is made by Brass Eye’s director, Michael Cumming, who excavated the material from his own chest of floppy discs and VHS tapes. It’s touring now, and for Brass Eye fans – that’s me! – it’s a must-see.
Why? Because it reveals the broadcast series – six short episodes only, plus the notorious “Paedogeddon” special – as just the tip of an iceberg of astonishing material. Scenes such as the West End musical about Peter Sutcliffe and the footage of Morris with a spacehopper on his head scoring made-up drugs on a street corner were often prime cuts of much longer sequences, shown here. Then there are whole unseen items, every bit as harsh/funny as the broadcast material – like the “Lady Parliament” sketch, in which Morris convenes an all-female panel to adjudicate on animal cruelty, then bamboozles and patronises the panel to a hasty conclusion.
