Twenty-four years after Staines’s foremost political interlocutor was last seen on the big screen in Ali G Indahouse, Ali G is set to return to cinemas.
As reported by The InSneider, a new movie has wrapped production, with filming locations including Oxfordshire, where Baron Cohen was spotted in character last summer, and in the US. A title and release date have not been confirmed and representatives for the star declined to comment.
A return for the character was first rumoured in 2023, but the project was reportedly delayed by the series of writers’ and actors’ strikes in the US.
Ali G, a shellsuit wearing naïf who energetically culturally appropriates as part of the west Staines massiv, first appeared on Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock show in 1998 as the “voice of da yoof”, before the broadcaster gave him his own show in the early 2000s. Although Baron Cohen declared both Ali G and Borat – his Kazakh TV presenter and the star of a highly successful 2006 film – retired in 2007, both have returned.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm was released in 2020, while there were appearances by Ali G at the 2012 British Comedy Awards, in the TV show Ali G: Rezurection and at the 2016 Oscars.
Shot in secret, as per much of Borat and 2009’s Brüno, which featured an Austrian fashion guru, the new Ali G film is believed to feature interviews with unsuspecting pundits. Previous audiences conducted by Ali G include a bemused Newt Gingrich and an outraged Tony Benn.
Baron Cohen’s other credits include The Trial of the Chicago 7, for which he was Oscar-nominated, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Dictator, Hugo, Les Misérables and the Madagascar films. His most recent movie, Netflix’s gender-swap comedy Ladies First, was poorly received by critics. His TV work includes dramatic series The Spy and Disclaimer and the incendiary 2019 sketch show Who Is America?
