Chris Morris plans terrorism film

Chris Morris is set to court controversy again, with a new TV film about Islamic terrorism.

The Brass Eye creator told an audience last week that he wanted to do ‘the comedy version of United 93’, the film about the 9/11 airliner that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers struggled with hijackers.

He has also previously been spotted at a heavyweight debate on the ethics of Al Qaeda, and what is said to be a casting sheet seeking actors for the Channel 4 film has appeared on the internet.

Casting director Des Hamilton says he is presently working on a film directed by Morris about a bunch of Pakistani lads living in Britain. He added that he is ‘hitting the streets of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow in search of unknown actors’.

The casting call, as posted on he Cookd And Bombd fansite, says Morris is writing a script about ‘what [the British-Pakistani lads] do for work, for play, what they believe, how they relate to their parents, families, the culture around them, their sense of heritage...’

In the list, one character, 22-year-old Azzam, is described as ‘the sort of guy who’d protest against cartoons in a bomb belt’.

And at a talk at Bournemouth University last week, Morris hinted that he was working on a large project that would take him back to his current affairs roots. According to a fan who was in the audience, Morris ‘was very guarded, but said that he would love to do something about 9/11’.

Posting on Cookd And Bombd, the anonymous audience member said: ‘It was notable that he seems to be interested in conspiracy theorists, as he stated with conviction that we shouldn’t think that 7/7 was initiated by some young Pakistani men from Leeds.

‘He thinks that people should make comedy from things like the Holocaust, and that he would love to do “the comedy version of United 93”.’

The film is being produced by Derrin Schlesinger, who also produced Morris in Nathan Barley and The IT Crowd.

Meanwhile, Morris is also working on a second series of Nathan Barley, which promises new situations and new characters.

Published: 16 Mar 2007