Chris Morris (I)

Blues in the night

A more thoughtful Chris Morris is back on the airwaves, says Stephen Armstrong.

Chris Morris's Brass Eye (C4) triumphantly finished its run last night, and over the past month or so it must have dawned on one and all - the admirers, the enemies, the envious and the simply baffled - that this has been a consistently outstanding series. It has certainly dawned on me.

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C4's previous venture into hoaxing - The Mark Thomas Comedy Product - was critically judged to be a disaster, but at least that series tried (albeit clumsily) to expose government hypocrisy, whereas Brass Eye's spoof drug alert (getting a question asked in the House about a non-existent narcotic) proved nothing and merely wasted everybody's time.

Avoiding the obvious newsroom jokes, and packing every second full of acute observation and sharp parody, Morris, Armando Iannucci and the rest of the team have produced a brilliantly original show. Their radio origins reveal themselves continually in their distinguished use of sound, and their bravery in running without canned laughter has paid off: a show this good doesn't need it.

But what finally convinced me that On The Hour had made its own mark on radio comedy was its effrontery in taking a hefty lunge at its stablemate The Week Ending, "The long-running, irreverent romp through the week's news". An inside glimpse of the planning meeting, mild sneers at the pace, the students' union flavour - and, unkindest cut of all, a crack about giving "Old and middle class people in the south-east something to chuckle about".