On the Hour


On the Hour was a British radio programme that parodied current affairs broadcasting, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1991 and 1992. Written by Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and David Quantick, On the Hour starred Morris as the overzealous and self-important principal anchor. He was accompanied by a regular cast assembled by Iannucci, comprising Steve Coogan, Rebecca Front, Doon Mackichan, Patrick Marber and David Schneider, who portrayed assorted news reporters, presenters and interviewees. On the Hour featured the first appearance of Coogan's character Alan Partridge as the "Sports Desk" reporter.

Overview

As in much of Morris's work, surrealism was an important part of the programme, the nonsense in the content delivered in the same straight-faced manner with which contemporary news stories are dealt, and it has often been quoted that Morris's initial intention was indeed to show how the public would believe anything if it was delivered with a straight-face. It did fool many people, with some listeners ringing in to complain about how the anchor treated his guests. The programme also utilised editing of out-of-context sound-clips and prank phone calls, heightening its surreal quality.
The satirical edge was equally significant, both the references within news programmes to the fact that they are reporting the news and repeating the show's title as well as such aspects as newsspeak, media-manipulation, exploitation of tragedies, patronising mistreatment of the general public, lack of fact-checking—personified by Marber's Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan—and the general assumption that the programme itself is infallible. Also satirised were party political broadcasts, chummy yet vacuous radio DJs, religious broadcasting, glossy magazines, 'fun' local events, local radio, youth information shows, Radio 4 plays, Royal ceremonies, and even satirical comedies that do not hit the mark—as well as the absurdities of life. Episodes would often feature a main storyline interspersed between the various news items.
Twelve episodes were made and broadcast in 1991 and 1992. A regular feature in Series One was the On the Hour "Audio Pullout," a mid-episode "colour supplement" that would usually parody human interest stories and local events.
The final episode of On the Hour closed with Morris introducing a set of headlines with the line "And there is still just time to part the beef curtains on tomorrow's news." Running throughout the final episode was the announcement that On the Hour would be taking over all of Radio 4 to transmit 24-hour "Perma-News."
On the Hour was named "Best Radio Comedy" at the 1992 British Comedy Awards, and it also won the 1992 Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Comedy/Light Entertainment. The On the Hour team subsequently made a television series called The Day Today, which retained the same regular cast and several characters from On the Hour.

Recurring characters

Christopher Morris : The anchor. Combative and overly zealous, he believes in the infallibility of the news, bombastically delivering slogans like "Man is only 90% water, but On the Hour is 100% news!", "Arise, Sir News!" and "These facts are ear-shaped, let's ram them home!" Morris frequently talks over his guests and does not realise or will not admit when he has the wrong person on the other end of the phone. He also "interviews" real-life politicians, whose responses are edited from pre-recorded material to render them nonsensical, as well as the public, getting baffled or earnest responses to absurd questions. Morris reprised his newsman persona for The Day Today and Brass Eye, retaining the character's self-importance while further emphasising his bullying demeanour.
Roger Blatt/Michael Blatt : Roger Blatt is the "Disaster correspondent" for a train crash report; the identically-voiced Michael Blatt is the "Strategy correspondent" for the On the Hour "War Special."
Wayne Carr : Cloyingly-upbeat and smug DJ with a penchant for contracting words. Wayne's reports include inappropriately-upbeat coverage of a train crash disaster, an exposé on hidden messages in pop records, and a "chinnywag" about endangered animals. The character of Wayne Carr was retained from Morris's previous radio projects. His name is a reference to the abusive term "wanker".
Continuity Announcer : Often called upon to present news or announce the station's scheduling, the Continuity Announcer speaks with a deep, nasal voice, and can be heard shuffling paperwork before he speaks. Morris later used the Continuity Announcer's voice for the national emergencies propaganda reel in the second episode of The Day Today.
Lionel Cosgrave : An Everyman who appears in several news reports; his surname is referred to interchangeably as "Cosgrave" and "Cosgrove." Lionel's age varies according to each report – sometimes he is a youngster, at other times middle-aged. Lionel is usually presented as a victim.
Rosy May : Environmental correspondent. Rosy presents absurd environmental-themed news in the segment "Green Desk." This segment is accompanied by new-age music, including synthesised whale song. Rosy later appeared in The Day Today, although her segment was re-titled "Enviromation."
Jacques Œuf : Appears in two episodes as a French counterpart to Wayne Carr, primarily reporting on celebrity incidents, including a series of photos featuring celebrities vomiting in public and a fight between Brigitte Bardot and Jean-Michel Jarre at Cannes. A broadcaster from "Euronews," Œuf speaks in improper and mispronounced French. Like Carr, his name is a homophonic slang term for masturbation.
Peter O'Hanraha-hanrahan : Economics correspondent. Highly incompetent, reporting dubious facts and figures before being forced by Morris to admit that he has not actually read the reports he is ostensibly presenting. He later appeared in The Day Today.
Alan Partridge : Sports correspondent. Alan presents "Sports Desk" reports for On the Hour, but he frequently displays little to no knowledge of the sports he is covering, getting the terminology and basic rules of the sports wrong. Interviewing real-life sporting figures such as Nigel Mansell, Graham Gooch, Sevi Ballesteros, Gabriela Sabatini and Linford Christie, as well as fictional athletes, Alan frequently goes into tangents relating to groin injuries and the interviewees' physical attractiveness. His interviews usually end in awkwardness for himself, his subject, or both. He also makes condescending remarks towards women and Moroccans during his coverage of the 1992 Olympic Games. He is absent from the original untransmitted pilot episode of On the Hour, which features a sports correspondent named "Bill," played by Armando Iannucci. One of Britain's most enduring and beloved comic characters, after On the Hour, Alan would appear in the Radio 4 series Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge; the TV series The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge, the web series Mid Morning Matters with Alan Partridge, two 'specials', the film and most recently, the spoof magazine show This Time With Alan Partridge, as well as several appearances for the UK charity Comic Relief.
Kevin Smear : Correspondent who appears in several episodes and is later referred to as the winner of the "Golden Fist Award" for his reporting.
Monsignor Treeb-Lopez : Contributes trite, religious bons mot in the segment "Thought for the Day". A creation of Lee and Herring, Treeb-Lopez was not retained for The Day Today; his character was replaced by Marber's French postmodernist philosopher, Jaques-'Jaques' Liverot.
Barbara Wintergreen : Correspondent on the American channel CBN. Speaking with an exaggerated American accent and making use of convoluted puns, her reports include a Christmas-themed prison execution, prenatal makeovers, a re-enactment of the JFK assassination, and women being banned from the state of Nebraska. Barbara's reports include recurring characters such as Death row inmate Daimler Jeffries and feminist Donna Doubtfire, as well as various characters played by Steve Coogan. Barbara Wintergreen later appeared in The Day Today, in which Marber's Daimler Jeffries character was renamed "Chapman Baxter" and Front's Donna Doubtfire character was renamed "Thea Peachman."

Reception

On the Hour has been praised by critics. The Quietus wrote that On the Hour "remains one of British broadcast comedy's most dizzying accomplishments". Uncut called it "the Monty Python of the modern era" and "the show that changed everything".

Episodes

;Series One
;Series Two
Owing to the dispute with Lee and Herring mentioned above, the show was initially only commercially available as a two-hour audio compilation on audio cassette. The compilation was edited down from the six hours of both series and specials, which removed all traces of Lee and Herring's writing. This was widely available for many years, and a CD re-release was announced in the early 2000s in the inlays of other Radio Collection titles but failed to materialise.
Like many BBC Radio comedies, On the Hour has been repeated on the digital station BBC Radio 4 Extra since its inception in 2002 as BBC7, although most of these differ from the original broadcast versions. The final two episodes from series 1 are aired in their 30-minute form, taken from extended repeats broadcast in 1991, whilst series 2 transmissions are based on the edited repeats for BBC Radio 4. The penultimate episode of series 2 was missing from all millennial repeats, as the master tape was apparently lost, but after a twelve-year search the tape was finally located and the episode repeated several times in 2015.
Both series of On the Hour were released as limited-edition audio CD boxed sets by Warp Records in November 2008, in their original episodic form. Series 1 was uncut, although five out of six episodes of series 2 were presented in their significantly edited repeat versions. The only uncut series 2 episode — the then-still-missing episode 5 - was included from an off-air cassette. The Christmas episode included on the series 1 set is the 1992 version. The original version, first broadcast on 24 December 1991, featured a satirical overview of the year 1991; this overview was replaced by material parodying the events of 1992 for the episode's repeat on 31 December 1992.
Extra tracks include the untransmitted pilot episode; a remastered needledrop of the flexidisc originally released by Select magazine in May 1992; the "Resurrection Cattle" sketch ; and over 20 minutes of unedited improvisations from some of the Alan Partridge sessions.
Both series can also be purchased on iTunes and have been uploaded to streaming sites such as YouTube.