Borat star's secret cheesy local TV past

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Here is Sacha Baron Cohen as you have never seen him before. Dressed in a gold top and tight pinstripe trousers, he makes his small-screen debut as a cheesy local TV presenter - and it's not a Borat-style spoof.

These exclusive pictures show Sacha, then 24, working on Slough station Pump TV. It's a far cry from last week's announcement that he has secured a £16-million deal for his next film, Bruno, making him Britain's highest-paid actor.

Read more...

• Sweeney Todd film role for Borat star

• Everyone knows 'Borat' - but who is Sacha?

• Borat is rude, and crude - he's also hilarious

• Borat success sparks million dollar bidding war for rights to next film

• Borat's a cheeky chap, but that's his appeal

Back in Slough, however, surrounded by a cardboard set, Sacha was honing his interview technique — made famous by his later creations Ali G and Borat — on guests including a calligraphy teacher and a girl dressed as a cat.

But instead of Borat's broken English, he speaks with educated tones.

However, there are already signs of Ali G's lingo creeping in — he uses the word "respect" three times in the half-hour show, and describes local band Happy Pills as "the angry sound of Slough youth".

Lead singer Lewis Batt said: "We looked down on him because he was working on a cr*p local TV show. I remember him using the phrase interesting philosophical conundrum'. You wouldn't get that from Kate Thornton."

The show was axed in 1996. But two years later Ali G appeared on Channel 4's The 11 O'Clock Show.

Meanwhile, residents of a Romanian village filed a £15million lawsuit over their depiction in Borat. Residents of Glod, who stood in for Kazakhs in the film, accuse the filmmakers of misleading them into thinking the project was a documentary about poverty.

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