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Artist
On The Hour
12+ albums
comedyhumourhumourous
about
On the Hour was a British radio programme that parodied current affairs broadcasting, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1991 and 1992. It was written by Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and David Quantick and starred Morris as the overzealous and self-important principal anchor (for which he used his own full name). He was aided and abetted by a regular cast of Steve Coogan, Patrick Marber, David Schneider, Doon Mackichan and Rebecca Front as news reporters, presenters, interviewees, etc. It also featured the very first appearance of Coogan's character Alan Partridge as the Sportsdesk reporter. Surrealism was an important part of the programme, especially since every drop of pure nonsense ("De-frocked cleric eats car park", "Borrowed dog finds Scotland", etc) was delivered in an accurate rendition of the straight-faced manner in which contemporary news stories are dealt, and it has often been quoted that Morris' initial intention was indeed to show how the public would believe anything if it was delivered with a straight-face. And it did fool many people, with some listeners ringing in to complain about how the anchor treated his guests. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.