How director Michael Cumming swapped dull TV for comedy's cutting edge

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Saturday 12th February 2022

Brass Eye, Toast and Oxide Ghosts: How director Michael Cumming swapped dull TV for comedy's cutting edge...

As you may well have heard, it's 25 years since Brass Eye first hit our screens. And it's only a couple of weeks since the show was trending on Twitter, as one MP's bizarre utterance - 'ambushed by cake' - sent many of us down memory lane, to the show's famous faux drug campaign. From Bernard Manning to Bernard Ingham, some big 90s names were ambushed by cake.

Chris Morris's grittier follow-up to The Day Today debuted on Channel 4 in January/February 1997, and fired a mighty blunderbuss at the modern media landscape, winding lots of folks up along the way - not least the random celebs cajoled into earnestly espousing made-up causes.

Cumming has been shooting big hitters again recently. A year ago he and Stewart Lee did hours of interviews for the post-punk doc King Rocker. He's directed major US talent in the cameo-peppered Toast Of Tinseltown, which has just concluded but you can catch-up on via iPlayer. And he's appearing in cinemas himself soon, as his Brass Eye film Oxide Ghosts tours the UK, with live guests like Lee and David Walliams.

But he nearly ditched directing before all that.

How did you get involved with Chris Morris originally; what had you been doing before?

I was an art student and then went to film school. My work there was experimental, non-commercial, self-indulgent - all the good stuff - but by the time I met Chris, in 1995, I was becoming something of a jobbing director and I very much disliked it.

I'd done a variety of fairly dull TV since graduating and tried to keep sane with the occasional arts council funded film. I had recently directed the 'look at those crazy Americans' type segments for Channel 4 show The Word. All this had left me bored/appalled with television. I would probably have given up on television if I hadn't been offered the job directing Brass Eye.

The series editor of The Word - I guess because of its controversial reputation - had been asked to produce the BBC pilot that would eventually become Brass Eye and I was one of the directors he invited to meet Chris. I immediately liked him and it felt to me like he might have found a way to use TV to make something truly original.

Can you remember how Brass Eye was pitched to you; what the goal of it was?

I don't remember there ever being a treatment or any pitch document that said what Brass Eye would be - other than taking the Christopher Morris character from The Day Today and giving him his own current affairs show. We also brought along the brilliant, bombastic, Ted Maul (who appeared in a few Day Today items).

I don't think anyone mentioned that there would be 'celebrity baiting' in the initial discussions. That developed as we went along. I just remember Chris asking me stuff like - How would you fire a cow from a cannon? - that's when I realised this was going to be something exciting and new.

Was directing that show quite an eye-opener for you? Did you find any of it particularly challenging?

I had never directed any comedy before, so it was certainly an eye opener, but I did understand the sorts of shows we were parodying and I definitely was right behind the idea that television needed a damn good kicking. But, yes, every single frame was challenging.

How did the idea for Oxide Ghosts come about, and how would you describe what the film is?

I've had this box of tapes - and a vague idea that I might try and do something with them - for years. In 2017 I was asked by the Pilot Light TV festival if I would speak at their 20th anniversary screening of Brass Eye. I thought I would see if there was an unseen bit on the tapes we could play at the screening.

It was that process of looking for clips, amongst all these hours of tape, that brought the memories flooding back and made me think that there might be a film of some sort in it. I put something together to show to Chris, who generously said that I should go ahead and show it.

How would I describe it? I suppose in one way it's my personal take on the ups and downs of an extraordinary two years of my life and in another, it's like if the video art pioneer Nam June Paik directed an episode of It'll Be Alright On The Night.

Were there any celebs who didn't make it into the show - because they guessed it was false, maybe?

There was the odd, very rare, hiccup - shall we say - and I do go into that at the shows, so I won't spoil it. On the whole though, the amazing thing was that no one actually realised that it was a Chris Morris TV show they were spouting their opinions on. Even though most of the time they were reading those opinions from a script that Chris had actually written for them.

What have been the most common questions at those screening Q&As - are there certain Brass Eye things that people still obsess over?

Well, your previous question is quite popular! - but I really like it when people have very specific and detailed enquiries, because it forces me to try and work out exactly how we did stuff.

The thing that makes the screenings different and interesting is the questions that come up at the end. The audience often know the shows very well and it keeps me on my toes, trying to prove that I know as much as they do. Also, each screening has a different host for the Q&A and so it can go off in all kinds of different directions.

This year, as in previous screenings, we will announce a few well-known Brass Eye enthusiasts hosting the evenings - special guest hosts announced so far include Stewart Lee and David Walliams - but all the hosts tend to know their brass onions.

More recently you've directed the star-studded Toast Of Tinseltown - any interesting tales, how certain names got involved?

Because the first three series of Toast Of London ended up going onto Netflix, it was suddenly seen all over the world and, unbeknownst to me, had garnered a bit of a following in the USA.

I think all the stars from across the pond did it because they were fans of the show. One of them - and if you've seen it, you will know who - stipulated that he would do it as long as he could say 'Yes, I can hear you Clem Fandango'. Brilliant.

Having Tinseltown being broadcast - and so well received - in exactly the same month that Brass Eye was born, 25 years previously, has been very satisfying. Working with Matt Berry for the last 17 years - first on Snuff Box, then Toast Of London and now Tinseltown - restored my faith in the possibilities of television all over again.

And Arthur Mathews (Father Ted), who co-writes Toast, has a brilliantly skewed take on comedy. Arthur will be hosting my Dublin Oxide Ghosts show, as he has before, and that is always a great night.

Say you made an Oxide Ghosts-style film about Toast one day - what clips from the cutting-room floor would you definitely include?

Well, there certainly wouldn't be many deleted scenes to look back on, because there is never enough time to shoot anything that isn't going to be included. Brass Eye had plenty of time to experiment and so, inevitably, some things got left on the cutting room floor/in the box of tapes.

But there are always funny outtakes, because you try to make sure that the atmosphere on set is conducive to creating comedy. Shooting the scenes with the American comedy legend I mentioned - the one who wanted to say the 'Fandango' line - was a thrill.

There is a fantastic outtake where he insults Toast's hairstyle and Matt's improvised response caused so much laughter that the whole take was unusable and so won't see the light of day until Oxide Ghosts 2: The Toast Tapes...

Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes + Q&A with Michael Cumming tours from Feb 25th. Dates & Tickets