Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes – A Brief Review

Originally posted on Letterboxd. Watched at a screening that took place on 1st November 2024 – this review was edited slightly on the 19th. “Only shown at live events, Oxide Ghosts: The Brass Eye Tapes is made from unseen sketches and outtakes from seminal British TV series Brass Eye.”

I’m not going to reveal too much about this – instead I’ll point out a couple of things.

First, it’s fascinating how so many famous moments from the series effectively began as beta versions, if you’ll excuse the grotesquely tech-orientated term; there’s entire stretches which are like a compilation from a Brass Eye that exists in an alternate universe, with moments like the weasel fighting in “Animals” coming across as if viewed from a different angle.

On top of that, there’s countless bits cut from well-known sketches (reports?) that are entirely up to standard. One extreme example of this is the Jam Factory sketch from “Moral Decline” (criticised by some as feeling below-par compared to the rest of the series), which exists here as a much-expanded and, to be honest, much better version of what got broadcast. There’s also the inclusion of material that was rejected for not really working, and various bits and pieces that were only shot just to distract the censors while other stuff was smuggled in.

Secondly – it’s magical to see so many outtakes where Chris Morris just full-on cracks up because something’s gone wrong, or he gets too amused by something he’s literally just come up with while on camera. In fact, quite a few legendary lines begin as moments of inspiration that dissolve into laughter, which are then swiftly re-taken.

The Q+A afterwards at the screening I attended was great as well, and some interesting stuff was uncovered – and this is the only thing which I’ll share, as it didn’t come up in the film. There’s an almost flash-frame like moment in the opening titles where (among Liam Gallagher flicking the V’s and Morris dramatically turning and pointing) you can see an odd pink version of Cake in the hands of David Jatt.

Well, it turns out that was a prop originally created for an episode of Alas Smith & Jones(!), and was in fact the inspiration for the whole idea of Cake when Morris spotted it on a shelf in the TalkBack Productions offices. As Cummings himself said to us, somewhere in an episode of Mel & Griff’s 80s / 90s sketch show you might catch a glimpse of a large and strangely familiar pink tablet that would later cause questions to be asked in the Houses of Parliament, and change British TV comedy forever.

Live screenings of Oxide Ghosts continue until 27th November – see this page for more details: https://www.michaelcumming.co.uk/oxide%20ghosts/