Chris Morris (I)

News waffle was the enemy on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe - the new show from the newspaper critic. Newswipe began on an odd note - tortuously spending five minutes explaining what it was, when anyone who'd seen it in the listings had simply thought: "Oh, Newswipe. That will be like Brooker's previous series - Screenwipe - but about current affairs, instead of telly." Also - and perhaps inevitably - Newswipe had the faint, cordite smell of The Day Today clinging to its hair. For half an hour it was a show that basically wanted to say, in the words of Chris Morris: "These are the headlines. I wish to God they weren't."

Still, Brooker's schtick - an intelligent, liberal man brought to the brink of despair simply by looking at the BBC's homepage - is as welcome dissecting the German high-school shootings as it is Holby; and having an ROFL Newsnight is something to cling to in the schedules.

"You shouldn't criticise," says the archetypal mother figure, "If you can't do better yourself." It's a truism that boggle-eyed curmudgeon Charlie Brooker has dedicated his life to proving. The Guardianista set love his brand of anaemic satire because it never challenges their worldview; it simply articulates their own opinions in a stream of Chris Morris Lite vituperative logorrhoea. But even they have to question his poacher-turned-gamekeeper urge to make television programmes, particularly when it results in tat like Nathan Barley or Dead Set, a Swiftian satire dedicated to the coruscating proposition that Big Brother isn't very good. Screenwipe is Brooker's chance to show us what he thinks quality programming should be. So what do we get? Estuary-accented invective deliveredveryfastindeed, as if gabbling makes it somehow more trenchant, and grainy footage of Charlie sitting on his sofa shouting bleeped profanities at his television. If he were a student making videos for a media-studies course, his cheap ire might be acceptable. But this is national television, and Charlie Brooker is 37 years old.

Wannabe suicide bombers beware

He has persuaded MPs to campaign to keep the fictitious drug "cake" off the streets, and musician Phil Collins to warn children against paedophiles while wearing a "Nonce Sense" T-shirt. Now the satirist Chris Morris is tackling his most controversial topic yet: wannabe suicide bombers.

It's hard to think of an office-based comedy more different from The Office than this. Graham Linehan's absurdist sitcom feels nearer in spirit to The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin: off in a mad world of its own, yet uncomfortably familiar, even at its maddest. The IT Crowd even used to have its own 'CJ'-type figure in Denholm Reynholm, the overbearing boss of Reynholm Industries played by Chris Morris. Although Reynholm jumped out of a high window in the last series, his playboy son Douglas (Matt Berry) shows every sign of carrying on the family name (plundering the pension fund, putting flakes of gold in the drinking water, etc) and more or less takes over tonight's very funny opening episode. That leaves our IT-department trio of geeky Moss, lazy Roy and uptight Jen slightly overshadowed. But the sweet scene where Moss and Roy try some role-play to help Moss deal with park bullies just about makes up for it.

In a recent newspaper column, Charlie Brooker hinted at a Damascene conversion to compassion as he argued against looking down 'on the genuine misery of those you consider beneath you' - something of a speciality for the Brooker of old. So, as BBC Four schedules six more parts of the critic's telly-bashing series Screenwipe (TV Burp for Chris Morris fans), can we expect it to be fronted by the pop-eyed, acerbic, ranting celebricidal Brooker, or a new touchy-feely incarnation? Thankfully, it looks like being the former, as tonight he explores what effect 'Manuelgate' could have on BBC programming, and sticks the boot into the plethora of job-based shows clogging the channels.

Chris Morris Announces Jihad Film / Needs Money

Last week, a mass email apparently originating from Warp Films, producers of Chris Morris's new project tentatively titled Four Lions, asked interested parties for monetary contributions to the cause of quality British satire.

New Statesman Review

These late-night stories echo the bleak humour of Chris Morris.

Off The Telly Series 2 Review

It remains to be seen how the series will fare without Chris Morris, he's clearly going to be missing out on a lot of fun. The audience, meanwhile, aren't. The IT Crowd has gone beyond the novelty value of being a breath of comedic fresh air, and is establishing itself - or in fact probably already has - as a great series in its own right.

My Wrongs #8245-8249 & 117 (2002)

My Wrongs... is a film that arrives with certain expectations. Firstly, it comes from the mind of Chris Morris who, through his work on such television series' as The Day Today and Brass Eye, has proven himself to be one of the UK's leading satirists, not to mention one of the most controversial ("Sickest TV ever" screamed a Sun headline over Brass Eye's 'Paedogeddon' special). Secondly, it stars Paddy Considine, who is fast becoming Britain's finest actor following work on such films as A Room for Romeo Brass, Last Resort and 24 Hour Party People. And finally, it marks the first foray into film production for experimental dance label Warp Records, who have provided us with such aural pleasures as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher... and Vincent Gallo(!) as well as issuing Morris' Blue Jam radio series on CD.

Why Chris Morris had to make Brass Eye

The man who set Britain talking with a 30-minute TV satire is already moving on to his next target.