Sacha Baron Cohen is reportedly planning to bring back Ali G for a stand-up tour
The character previously starred in his own movie and HBO show
It’s been 25 years since a rapper from the suburbs near London named Ali G first started interviewing politicians and celebrities on Channel 4’s The 11 O’Clock Show (before getting his own show that aired on HBO in the U.S. and introduced a journalist from Kazakhstan named Borat), and now his dad Sacha Baron Cohen is apparently bringing the character back. This comes from Variety, which says Baron Cohen is planning a stand-up tour “in which Ali G will make an appearance.”
That’s about all we know, but “a source close to Baron Cohen strenuously denied a new movie was in development,” with that source saying Baron Cohen, as a WGA and SAG-AFTRA member, is following the rules of the ongoing strikes. That means, whatever he’s doing, it definitely is not another movie and not a revival of Da Ali G Show.
But there’s nothing stopping him from bringing back Ali G onstage, which is something he has toyed with in the recent past. Variety notes that Baron Cohen did some Ali G bits at a secret show in Australia in 2021, saying later that he wanted to “see what Ali G would be like with a crowd” and that it was “really good fun.” So keep an eye out for some really good fun whenever this stand-up tour takes off.
Baron Cohen’s most recent big project was the surprisingly good Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, which had that scene with Rudy Giuliani that we either don’t talk about enough or should never talk about again. Before that, he starred in HBO’s Who Is America?, which featured him donning various ludicrous disguises to catch politicians and other MAGA nuts saying and doing stupid things (this was an era where we still thought saying and doing stupid things was bad and not Plan A for right-wing people).