...in a new film with Tez Ilyas

Tez Ilyas and Nish Kumar have made a short film about deporting immigrants for the BBC.

The Go Home Office has been made for BBC Three – but has been on hold during the EU Referendum.

Written by Ilyas, a former civil servant at the Home Office, the film is set in a dystopian future Britain where a far-right organisation has ascended to power and rebranded the department responsible for immigration as the Go Home Office.

'And I, a brown civil servant with no self-awareness, have to implement that policy,’ Ilyas told Chortle

Describing his character as an 'Uncle Tom-type figure', the British-Pakistani comic says he is sending up civil servants' political neutrality to juxtapose 'who I am as an individual, which I refuse to acknowledge on screen, and the job that I'm doing'.

Kumar's character is attending the Go Home Office 'to justify why he's allowed to stay in the country, to me, his case officer,’ Ilyas explains. 'And he's questioning, "what about you?"’

He added: ‘I'm very excited about the reaction to it

A BBC spokesperson confirmed that 'BBC Three has commissioned a short-form piece with Tez Ilyas coming soon’.

Channel 5 is also probing the world of immigration with its new comedy series, Borderline, which is due to start on August 2.

Starring David Avery, Jackie Clune, David Elms, Liz Kingsman, Jamie Michie and Guz Khan, the semi-improvised mockumentary series is based in the border security office of fictional Northend Airport 

Directed by The Revolution Will Be Televised's Daniel Lucchesi, the Go Home Office is a co-production from Phil McIntyre Entertainment and Rumpus Media, whose recent commissions for BBC Three have included James Acaster's music chatshow Sounds Random, which Lucchesi also helmed, and Romesh Ranganathan's travelogue Asian Provocateur.

Ilyas' remit at the Home Office included working as part of the Modern Slavery Unit and supervising security for the 2012 Olympics.

Both Ilyas and Kumar made Christmas shorts for Sky Arts last year and are both returning to the Edinburgh Fringe next month with shows that reference Brexit and Britain's treatment of ethnic minorities.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 20 Jul 2016