Sometimes, it seems almost as though there is a law that requires newspapers to mention certain facts whenever they write about Chris Morris. Every time that there is a reaction to his latest broadcasting 'outrage', the same old details about his career are trotted out in furious bullet point form; that he released helium into a news studio at Radio Bristol (which did happen, but affecting a weather report rather than the news of a train crash that they so frequently claim), that he announced the death of Michael Heseltine on Radio 1 (which is again a distortion of the truth - in actual fact, he broadcast highlights of his attempts to update the BBC's fictitious 'Heseltine Obituary Tape'), and that while at GLR, he broadcast an edit of the Queen's Christmas Day Speech which made her majesty appear to be making all manner of unseemly utterances. There is no dispute that the latter actually happened, but while it is as legendary among fans as it is notorious with those journalists who write about it as though it had some kind of direct personal effect on their lives, little is actually known about the edit or indeed the show that surrounded it. References to the incident rarely go any further than merely acknowledging that it existed, and there has been some considerable confusion as to what year it actually took place. From the tone that some reporters take when referring to a show that they have most likely never heard, you could be forgiven for assuming that he had stormed in on the Queen's broadcast and forced her to spout obscenities at gunpoint. In actual fact, though, the contents of the heavily amended speech were a lot milder than most people believe, and as notorious as the incident would become in later years, it took place in a remarkably understated fashion during the course of a normal Boxing Day show on a small local radio station in 1991.

By the time that the infamous Queen's Speech broadcast took place, Chris Morris had been working as a pop music DJ for GLR for three years. In keeping with the station's desire to associate itself with presenters who did something creative and distinctive with their airtime, Morris revelled in tearing apart the usual conventions of pop music radio, interrupting records in bizarre fashions, conducting surreal conversations with callers and recorded members of the public, and reading out absurd and fabricated stories about celebrities and topical issues. Earlier in 1991, Morris had teamed up with producer Armando Iannucci, writers Stewart Lee and Richard Herring, and performers Steve Coogan, David Schneider, Patrick Marber, Doon MacKichan and Rebecca Front for the Radio 4 series "On The Hour", which took the form of a news parody that used the genuine techniques and conventions of news gathering and presentation to frame surreal and parodic material. "On The Hour" was a huge critical success and represented a genuine exploration of new areas in radio comedy, but at the same time many of the participants did not come directly from 'traditional' radio comedy backgrounds, and continued to pursue their existing careers in parellel to their work on the series. Even though a second run of "On The Hour" was quickly commissioned for 1992, in the interim Coogan continued to work as an impressionist and voice-over artist, Lee, Herring and Iannucci continued to write and produce for other artists, and Morris returned to presenting shows for GLR.

On Boxing Day 1991, less than twenty-four hours after the Christmas special of "On The Hour" had seen him challenge many of the traditions and sacred cows of Christmas in his own uncompromising style (including a sequence where he launched a cpampaign against parental dishonesty over the existence of Father Christmas), Chris Morris was back on the air for a show on GLR. As usual, this show caught Morris on brilliantly enthusastic and anarchic form, gleefully messing with the conventions of pop music radio by talking of how he feels like tearing up anything that he is asked to read out, inviting burglars to phone in and show off about recent hauls, singing gibberish over the intro to Steve Wonder's 'Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing' and reading out fake news stories as if they were genuine bulletins. Among these were a series of warnings on how to avoid crime over Christmas courtesy of the BBC's Robstopper Unit, and an announcement of the imposition of a car size limit on the M25, with any vehicle over twelve feet in size being shortened accordingly on the spot. There were also several Feedback Reports, in which Morris got members of the public to give their opinions on surreal and faintly ridiculous invented topics, including one on the burning topical issue of Neck Legislation ("Would you bring it back?" - "Yes" - "Why?" - "I don't know"), and a discussion of the origins of Boxing Day. Apparently, on discovering that it was traditionally the day when servants went home to open their presents, he went to great lengths to physically restrain the staff of his household from doing so.

Chris Morris' GLR shows generally involved a far higher degree of audience interaction than was ever present in his later projects, incorporating a high volume of surreal phone-in quizzes and discussions, and this show was no exception. The dominating theme was a request that Morris had put out to his listeners to nominate 'naff dated records' that were not considered to be in any way novelty numbers in their day, but have since dated horrendously, but at the same time had an air of charm about them that made them quite endearing despite their obvious flaws. If you are feeling confused by the conditions and qualifications of that statement and are totally unable to think of any suitable examples, then don't feel too surprised - like a great many of the more unusual audience participation appeals that Morris made during the course of his GLR shows, it was probably intentionally designed to cause as much confusion among the listeners as was possible. Nevertheless, some listeners did feel brave enough to have a go at making potential suggestions, among them 'Piece Of The Action' and 'Now Those Days Are Gone' by Bucks Fizz, 'Is Vic There?' by Department S, 'Pop Muzik' by M (which Morris correctly predicted would get re-released before too long), 'Captain Of Her Heart' by Double, Wang Chung's 'Dance Hall Days', The Thompson Twins' 'Love On Your Side', and Plastic Bertrand's 'Ca Plan Pour Moi'. Needless to say, none of these suggestions quite met the requirements in Morris' view, and were subsequently derided by him on air.

Another phone-in topic covered during the course of this show revolved around absurd renditions of rock classics on ill-suited brass instruments, with listeners' suggestions including Gil Evans playing Jimi Hendrix's 'Voodoo Chile' on the tuba, and Frank Zappa's glorious arrangement of 'Stairway To Heaven' for brass and kazoo. Unfortunately, though, no-one responded to Morris' plea for someone with a trombone to call in and play The Commodores' 'Easy'. Meanwhile, a competition invited listeners to gauge and accurately describe a man's hairstyle and facial hair from a recording of Morris talking to him about mint cracknel and finance ("What's the first thing you think of in the morning?" - "Bills" - "Anyone else's?"), and there were several bizarre records to guess the identity of, including an absurdly over-the-top swing track ("if someone's head wants to phone in and say that they know who this is, then I'll ask them why they were buying cheap records in the Virgin Megastore"), and a well-known top ten hit split up into minute samples and scattered over a hip-hop drumbeat. There was also a vague and baffling promise of a 'Nik Kershaw competition', but full details of what this mysterious concept might have involved were never given out.

The playlist for this show leaned heavily towards 1970s soul and funk, but there were also airings for kd lang's 'Constant Craving', Prince's 'Starfish And Coffee', XTC's 'Making Plans For Nigel' (all of which would continue to recieve frequent plays when he hosted a Radio 1 show in 1994), and Wendy And Lisa's 'Don't Try To Tell Me'. He also performed an almost flawless segue from The Doors' 'Break On Through' (which was enjoying renewed popularity at that point following the recent release of Oliver Stone's biopic about the band) into The B-52's 'Private Idaho', a technique that he would also use on several other GLR shows. Towards the end of the show, an instrumental ska track was momentarily inerrupted by Big Ben chiming and a BBC announcer introducing the Queen's Christmas Day Speech, and Morris promising that he would be allowing listeners to hear the speech repeated "as it adapts to the times". Sounding uncharacteristically nervous, as though he had some semblance of an idea of the notoriety that this moment would bring him in the long term, Morris advised listeners to phone Capital Radio and complain if they were offended by the item. Then came the familiar tones of Queen Elizabeth the second, courtesy of Morris' re-editing skills, uttering the following message to the people of the Commonwealth:

"This year, I am speaking to you not from Buckingham Palace, but from the cross. It was from here that I made my first Christmas broadcast in 1862, and it was from this house that my grandfather George V and my father, curiously enough, used to service men and women. And this year, I am very glad to be able to speak to you again from a long drawn out and terminal illness. My heart goes out to those whose lives have been blighted by war, famine, natural disaster, Leonard Cheshire, or his fellow members of the Order of Merit. I first came here for Christmas as a grandchild. My great grandfather King Edward VII used to bring food, and try to put it behind us. Nowadays, my grandchildren come here for the sauce, tension and violence".

It is generally believed, by fans and by ignorant journalists alike, that Chris Morris was fired from GLR immediately after this broadcast took place. However, although he was undoubtedly censured in some way for playing the Queen's Speech tape, all the available evidence in fact points to him not having been fired at all. He was back on GLR within days of this show to present a superb New Year broadcast, and would continue to present shows on the station during 1992. Former GLR head Trevor Dann seemed affectionate and vaguely proud when he rifled around for a copy of the Queen's Speech edit (which, unfortunately, he couldn't find) during a documentary celebrating ten years of GLR, while Morris himself has suggested that it was the fact that he and GLR "no longer saw eye to eye", rather than any kind reaction to the Boxing Day show, that brought about his departure from the station. Meanwhile, a 1992 repeat of the "On The Hour" Christmas special saw new material inserted to replace the 'review of 1991' that had been in the original edit, including the full version of the Queen's Speech edit, which indicated that the BBC were far from sensitive about the idea of broadcasting the item.

Yet even though the edit was repeated as part of a high-profile programme on a national BBC radio station, there is still widespread confusion about exactly what the edit of the Queen's Speech involved. Many are in fact unsure of the true nature of its contents; one otherwise well-researched feature in a national newspaper misquoted the edit badly, while Michael Grade was notably vague about the contents when he referred to the edit in his autobiography. The fact of the matter is, though, that the Queen's Speech edit is - contrary to popular belief - not only perfectly suitable for rebroadcast, but is also merely the most famous example of a wealth of fantastic material that Chris Morris performed during his local radio days. Although little of it has been heard since the day of its original broadcast, his shows were positively overflowing with items - among them a newsflash on the growing menace of Dangerous Ducks, a Feedback Report that challenged incredulous members of the public for their views on the thorny issue of Nail Repossession, and the glorious lists of surreal 'Ways To Change The World' - that are every bit the equal of the more widely-known material that followed his move into television. Many fans of his work are eager to hear this untapped treasure trove of early material, and hope that one day someone will see fit to put together a series of compilations for rebroadcast, or better still for commercial release. If nothing else, it would give all of those lazy reporters another chance to fume over the Queen's Speech; and who knows - they might actually be able to hear it for themselves this time.