{"id":2039152,"date":"2025-09-21T15:34:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T15:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2039152"},"modified":"2025-09-21T15:34:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T15:34:23","slug":"when-john-stapleton-was-ambushed-on-live-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/when-john-stapleton-was-ambushed-on-live-television\/","title":{"rendered":"When John Stapleton was ambushed on live television"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2018A lot of bewildering nonsense\u2019: Chris Morris\u2019s appearance on The Time, The Place – YouTube<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Broadcaster John Stapleton <\/em>has died, aged 79<\/em><\/a>. In this piece, which was first published in 2022, we revisit the moment in 1996 when an incognito Chris Morris snuck into the audience of Stapleton\u2019s long-running chat show The Time, The Place. His mission? To bamboozle the presenter with a bizarre theory about sex in the Saxon world. But in the unflappable Stapleton he had met his match….<\/em><\/p>\n

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As Brass Eye<\/em> dropped celebrities into a steaming, self-humiliating vat of pure hot topic \u2013 see Phil Collins talking \u201cNonce Sense\u201d about paedophilia, or Noel Edmonds warning ravers about the dangers of Cake <\/a>(\u201ca made-up drug\u201d) \u2013 Chris Morris, Brass Eye<\/em>\u2019s chief architect and Paxmanian prankster, also set out to sabotage a cosy bastion of Middle England: daytime television.<\/p>\n

His target: audience participation chat show The Time, The Place<\/em>. The topic: \u201cAre British men lousy lovers?\u201d Posing as an academic named Thurston Lowe, Morris attempted to bamboozle the show\u2019s presenter, John Stapleton, with amusing twaddle about ancient Saxon sex and four-legged breasts \u2013 until Morris was hilariously rumbled on live TV.<\/p>\n

The episode aired in June 1996. Stapleton remembers it well. \u201cI couldn\u2019t forget it, could I?\u201d he laughs. \u201cForty-five years in television, covering wars, elections, tsunamis\u2026 but the thing that gets tweeted and played most of all is bloody Chris Morris. There you are, that\u2019s television for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years earlier, Morris had played a sneering, pompous anchor on the spoof news show, The Day Today <\/a>\u2013 a predecessor to Brass Eye<\/em>, Morris\u2019s merciless current affairs satire. A Brass Eye<\/em> pilot was in the works at the BBC as early as 1995. But the BBC didn\u2019t have the nerve for a whole series, so it was picked up by Channel 4.<\/p>\n

Brass Eye <\/em>tackled big subjects: current affairs favourites which included sex, drugs, and science. Public figures were roped in to support fake campaigns, such as A.A.A.A.A.A.A.Z. (Against Animal Anger and Autocasual Abuse Atrocities in Zoo), and unwittingly spout drivel. The point, perhaps, was not to ridicule celebs personally, but the outsized authority given to their voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Chris saying quite early on that he wanted to do a show focusing on a different subject every week,\u201d says co-writer Peter Baynham. \u201cWhen he said we\u2019re going to do these campaigns, I thought that was so exciting. It was so much fun thinking up the campaigns \u2013 an elephant with a trunk stuck up her arse [Paul Daniels pleaded help for that poor elephant], or a girl who got squashed by heavy electricity [which was falling out of power lines in Sri Lanka and squashing people, so the celebs explained].\u201d<\/p>\n

Brass Eye<\/em> was underway when Morris invaded The Time, The Place<\/em>. Stapleton thinks the stunt was intended for Brass Eye<\/em> \u2013 though it isn\u2019t featured in the finished series. Running from 1987 to 1998, The Time, The Place<\/em> came from a different city each day and drew up to two million viewers. \u201cWe did some good stuff,\u201d says Stapleton. \u201cWe did war, education, political issues \u2013 it wasn\u2019t all fun and froth.\u201d<\/p>\n

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‘An unembarrassable personality’: Chris Morris on Brass Eye, with a tablet of ‘cake’ – Channel 4<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the end of each episode, the host invited calls about one of the following week\u2019s topics (\u201cHave you had a face lift? Why did you have it? Did you feel under pressure to hang onto your looks?\u201d). From those calls, a handful of people were picked as nominated speakers for the on-air debate. \u201cHe must have called in,\u201d says Stapleton about Morris. \u201cI\u2019ve no idea what he told the researcher who picked up the phone \u2013 presumably it was a load of nonsense! They should never have allowed him to get on and say what he said on air.\u201d<\/p>\n

During filming at a Nottingham studio, Stapleton set up the \u201cAre British men lousy lovers?\u201d debate with Alan Partridge-esque panache. \u201cHave you ever fallen for a Frenchman\u2019s flattery? Lost your heart to a Latin lover? Or been swept off your feet by a sweet-talking Spaniard? Yes? But you married a Brit<\/em>. Why?\u201d<\/p>\n

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