Da Ali G Show

Heads up to those of you with HBO - this sounds pretty funny. Did anyone see it this weekend?

The High Art of Mockery (NYTimes)

"Boutros Boutros Boutros Boutros Ghali" is how Ali G addresses the dignified former secretary general of the United Nations. Posing as an interviewer for an MTV-esque channel catering to hip, undereducated British youths, Ali G persuades the elderly statesman to say "merde" and even spell it for him in French.

Ali G is the stage name of Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian who is famous in England as his comic persona, a white gangsta rapper wannabe (also known as a wanksta) who speaks a strangled argot of cockney, Jamaican and hip-hop slang. That is not his only character. He also plays Borat, an eager, naïve journalist from Kazakhstan whose wide-eyed reports from the United States are framed with Cyrillic graphics and traditional Central Asian music. Sometimes he is Bruno, the effete Austrian host of a hyper-hip television show about fashion, who in one segment crashes the runway of a designer collection by saying he is "Chrysler's muse."

"Da Ali G Show," which begins tonight on HBO, is irresistibly, corrosively funny. It also serves as a reminder of why HBO is home to so many comedies and dramas that are unmatched on network television. It is not just that Ali G uses obscenities that cannot be repeated in a family newspaper or on most networks. . . Ali G is clever, satirical and entirely free of any redeeming sentimentality; in mean spirit he is closer to Monty Python or Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" than to most popular comedies, including "Saturday Night Live."

"Ali G's refusal to wink or blink when interviewing starchy American officials is exquisitely painful to watch. "Wot iz legal?" Ali G asks Richard Thornburgh, the former attorney general, while dressed in a yellow Tommy Hilfiger skullcap, oversized yellow track suit, sunglasses and gold "bling bling" jewelry. . . He looks only slightly puzzled when Ali G asks him if he saw "Barely Legal 3," which he describes as a movie about college girls getting spanked when they don't complete their homework.

"Among others, Ali G interviews United Nations officials; Mr. Thornburgh and a predecessor, Edwin Meese 3rd; Newt Gingrich; and Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser. He tries out for a Philadelphia police training academy and, as Borat, seeks an American wife to take home to Kazakhstan. He tells the dating service consultant that he can provide his bride with "a television, with remote" but that she must have "plow experience." The consultant, like others, is perplexed but patient.

"The only person who bridles on camera at Ali G's willful stupidity is a Roman Catholic priest participating in a round table with a rabbi, an atheist and a professor. Flaunting a defiant ignorance reminiscent of the droogs in "A Clockwork Orange," Ali G confuses Jesus Christ with Santa Claus and asks the panel if God is not "just an overhyped version of David Blaine," the magician. "No," the priest replies. "And a lot of people would find that remark very offensive." Ali G blithely says, "Sorry," and continues in the same vein. The priest, remarkably, does not storm out ?- a testament to the ungodly power of television.

"The best British humor is callous, a trait that helped prompt American colonists to revolt in 1776. Despite all the shared shows and cross-pollination of the two cultures, there is still a different sensibility about comedy. . ."