If people aren't watching him, they're talking about him or imitating him: Ali G is the man of the moment, this year's model, all the rage . . . The star of Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show is not merely hip-hop's equivalent of Jeremy Paxman but also manages to be the most insensitive and crass television interviewer since the heady days of Alan Partridge. It was always abundantly clear that he was something special since his very first appearance on television last year, when he was sent off to interview members of a fox hunt. He asked all the female riders, "are you the fox?"
It's not the sheer stupidity and offensiveness of his questions that makes him remarkable (as anybody who's seen Oireachtas Report will testify), it's more that a British television station broadcasts his act uncensored and pays him good money to ask people like James Whitaker (the Daily Mirror's royal correspondent) the following series of questions, much to Whitaker's utter incredulity: "Do you think if the queen started to pay a bit of attention to her appearance then there would be more support for the monarchy?", "Why was Diana knobbing that Pakistani?", "Do you think that a lot of the objection to Camilla is because she is so minging?"
It's not just royalty and women who cause him concern, but the Irish and the judiciary. He asked David Alderdice, the Lord Mayor of Belfast, "Why is there all this fighting here? Is it something to do with the Wogan show?" And to Judge Pickles: "Is it all right to kill someone if they call your Mum a slag?" before going on to openly wonder if women should be allowed to do jury duty "when they have the painters in". Perhaps his finest moment, though, came when he was interviewing Lord Hinlip, the chairman of Christie's International; he asked him "Who's the best Impressionist?" Hinlip replied "Monet", to which Ali G said "Really? Do you think Monet could do Tony Blair, because even Rory Bremner has problems doing him."
Always dressed in his trademark yellow tracksuit and Tommy Hilfiger cap, Ali G is a b-boy right down to the amount of naff jewellery on his fingers. He's from a dreary area of north London (near Watford) where he and his "massive" spend their time either stealing things or shouting gratuitous abuse at passers-by. When asked how he first got involved with television he says "it's all down to my bitch Julie. She said me should stop sitting around all day wiv' me hand on me warrior watching TV or just hanging around the 'hood and instead do something with meself." He says that he eventually found gainful employment dealing drugs to the independent production company which makes The 11 O'Clock Show: "One day they wanted someone to do the weather 'cos the weather lady was banged up on some superskunk me had sold her and she was just staring at the camera and going `whatever . . .' That got me the job on the programme."
He didn't have a conventional education: "Once the headmaster of me school found out I was sleeping with Mrs Spiro I was thrown out and me learnt most of me stuff watching telly at me Nan's and hanging wiv me homies under the bridge. That was me university, where me learnt me hip-hop."
His hip-hop education has led him to be pitted in interview against all manner of "toffs" on the 11 O'Clock Show, who patently don't understand a word of hip-hop speak - hence the look on the Bishop of Horam's face when Ali G greeted him with a cheerful "Big up on you, bishop". Even speaking normally, he can leave his interviewees speechless, such as the time Ernst Vegelin, the curator of paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, was giving him a guided tour of some of the best art in the world. Looking at some priceless piece of work, Ali G turned to Vegelin and said: "When we was in fourth year, somebody did something like that and they only got a `C' for it."
Surprising as it may seem, Ali G is not a real person. He's the creation of the talented comedy character actor, Sacha Baron Cohen - who is white, Jewish and Cambridge-educated. Previously, Cohen played the character of a bewildered Albanian TV presenter who used to film sketches for the Paramount Comedy Channel and was brought on board The 11 O'Clock show by producer Harry Thompson (who is also the man behind Have I Got News For You? and the writer of last year's splendid Peter Cook biography).
As original as he may sound, Ali G is in fact the latest in a long (ish) line of hoax TV interviewers that stretches back, in this decade at least, to Dennis Pennis, includes Mrs Merton and Alan Partridge, and was brilliantly perfected in the Brass Eye series by Chris Morris. The idea is as simple as the knock-knock joke: pose as someone more stupid than you are, interview a series of figures from "the establishment" and sit back and listen as they proceed to take your questions seriously and spout the most ridiculous nonsense in their answers.
There is, though, an added point to the persona of Ali G: he's as much a self-referential celebration of a dumbed-down culture as Beavis and Butthead used to be for the MTV viewing audience. He is the hip-hop generation's way of parodying their own opinions and attitudes. More importantly, for an older generation of people, Ali G represents a grotesque caricature of today's youth - how they dress, how they speak and what their "concerns" are.
There's also an admonishment in there to some of Ali G's own peer group: he mercilessly caricatures how some stupid, young, white men today fatuously imitate the worst excesses of American gangsta rappers in their hateful attitude to women, their moronically egocentric ways and their patently ridiculous use of tough urban American slang. Most importantly, however, he's the best take-off you'll ever see of "yoof" TV presenters. Big up on you Ali, you is the butta flava.
Ali G appears on The 11 O'Clock Show every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on Channel 4. He will have his own series later in the year.
