The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The continuing fall-out from the Danish Muhammad cartoons has rumbled on and on around the world in a variety of ways, from the predictable (outraged flag burners, threats to cartoonists) to the unexpected (a fair old ding dong in Canada over human rights laws and freedom of expression). But now its had a more unusual consequence – Danish stand-up comic Omar Marzouk has written and will appear in a new sitcom entitled The Terror Cell for Danish TV. The show, which Omar says owes a lot of inspiration to anarchic 80s Brit cult comedy The Young Ones, features a group of dedicated but utterly inept would-be terrorists and an elderly neighbour who is convinced the Second World War is still going and doesn’t shop the boys because she assumes they are fighting Nazis. The programme has received European funding as part of a drive for public service broadcasting dealing with social issues and Omar, who has actually performed stand-up in Tel-Aviv, says the while its main aim is to entertain its also about using laughter to defuse the tension between Muslim communities and other Danes in the wake of recent events, which isn’t a bad thing to do. Unfortunately some people on all sides of the divide appear to have had a sense of humour bypass operation, I think, but good luck with it. (source: the New York Times)