Such is the style of Ali G, Britain’s newest comic star. In his sketches on “The 11 O’Clock Show,” Channel 4’s alternative comedy program, the self-proclaimed “voice of youth” seeks out prominent personalities as a way of “investigating” topics of interest to young people. His questions are designed to be offensive, but Ali G says he really means no harm. “It’s my character who looks the idiot,” he told one interviewer. “The subjects come across as nice, tolerant people.”
The would-be gangsta is actually a nice Jewish boy named Sacha Baron Cohen, 27, who grew up in posh north London and attended Cambridge University. His moxie sells well. Last month he released a best-of video, “Ali G Innit”; this spring Channel 4 is giving him his own show. Said British physicist Heinz Wolff, with whom Ali G hopelessly tried to pin down the size of infinity: “He’s totally harmless.” But wicked funny.
