Television series
Brass Eye
Brass Eye is a fake current-affairs programme built with such technical precision that its targets never see the joke coming. Chris Morris impersonates the grammar of British broadcasting—grave voiceovers, worried experts, concerned MPs—to expose how eagerly the press and public inflate moral panics. It's gleeful, cruel, and genuinely dangerous-feeling comedy for anyone who enjoys watching real people humiliate themselves on camera.
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The Day Today1994
This is where Morris and Armando Iannucci perfected the deadpan mock-news voice before turning it on real subjects, and the formal parody of TV news grammar is dazzling in its own right.
But It satirises the format of news rather than a real-world panic, so it's stranger and less confrontational than Brass Eye.
I'm Alan Partridge1997
Steve Coogan's creation, born in Morris's newsroom, is one of British comedy's most complete studies of vanity, delusion and professional failure.
But It's character comedy, not satire of institutions or media, so if you want that bite you'll be disappointed.
The Thick of It2005
Swap tabloid hysteria for government spin and you get the same forensic contempt for people who exploit crisis for their own advantage, delivered at ferocious speed.
But It's a sitcom underneath the swearing, without Brass Eye's documentary trickery or real unwitting participants.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
That Was the Week That Was1962
This is the ancestor of the whole tradition Brass Eye belongs to, the first British show to turn current affairs directly into comic ammunition, decades before Morris weaponised the news format itself.
Seeing where the entire lineage of British TV satire actually began is genuinely eye-opening, and it's sharper and braver than its reputation as a museum piece suggests.
But Much of the topical material now needs footnotes, and the production feels primitive next to Morris's technical polish.
More like this (6)
Veep2012
The American cousin, filthy-mouthed and merciless about political vanity, with dialogue so tightly constructed it rewards rewatching just for the insults.
But Purely verbal comedy, no fake-news structure, no pranking of real public figures.
Da Ali G Show2000
Sacha Baron Cohen shares Brass Eye's central trick of getting real politicians and celebrities to expose their own ignorance on camera, just via a fictional interviewer instead of a fictional epidemic.
But Broader and more juvenile in places, with less interest in satirising the news media itself.
Nathan for You2013
The same deadpan commitment to an absurd premise, played completely straight with real unwitting participants who never quite realise what's happening to them.
But Warmer and stranger than furious, aimed at reality-TV business culture rather than moral panic.
Four Lions2010no page yet
Morris's own feature turns the same unblinking satirical eye on terrorism, and it's the closest thing to Brass Eye's tone you'll find in narrative fiction.
But It's sustained character-driven fiction rather than a parody of news formats, so the target and method both shift.
Look Around You2002
An equally committed formal parody of broadcast conventions, this time skewering the earnest wonder of old science programmes with deadpan nonsense.
But No real people are duped and the stakes are low; it's silly rather than savage.
Capturing the Friedmans2003
Brass Eye's Paedogeddon special savaged the media's hysterical, fact-free coverage of child abuse panics; this documentary shows, without a single joke, the real human wreckage that kind of hysteria leaves behind.
A devastating, scrupulously fair documentary about how accusation, memory and media pressure can tear a family apart, regardless of what actually happened.
But There is nothing funny here at all, and it will sit with you for days rather than make you laugh.
People
Cast
Recommended by
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Look Around You, The Day Today, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Colbert Report, That Was the Week That Was