Next ... Chris Morris on Brass Eye. Photograph: Channel 4
Like salivating bloodhounds, the verbwhores on Chris Morris forums are sniffing out evidence of his latest work. Hinted at in a Bournemouth University Q&A session and confirmed by Channel 4, Morris is planning to make Islamic extremism his next target. The comedy terrorist taking on the terrorists - it's almost too perfect. He's taken on drugs, paedogeddon and Mad Frankie Fraser but could this be a touchy subject too far?
It doesn't have to be. The subject has been tackled before, notably by the sublime Tipton Taliban series of sketches on Monkey Dust. The sketches showed wannabe suicide bombers Omar, Abdul and Shafiq hopelessly corrupted by such Western decadence as McCain microchips and West Bromwich Albion. It showed integration in action - the ideological might of Islam corroded by the drip-drip of chip shop culture.
But Morris may not be so cutesy in his treatment. He may stick it to Islam like nobody before. It's a common complaint from Christian bed-wetters that their religion is an easy target and that no comic would dare do an Islamic version of, say, Jerry Springer: The Opera. And the bed-wetters are right of course. It's a racing certainty that anything Morris does that doesn't tickle Islam under the chin and feed it doggy drops will be called islamophobic in some quarters. Personally, I'm fine with it. If Morris wants to suggest that Islam and Islamism are fast becoming indistinguishable, that's his right. Unless I see Chris Morris hyperventilating every time he sees a woman in a hijab I won't be calling him islamophobic. Attempting to short-circuit debate by throwing that word around is just lazy. Like Homer said on Sideshow Bob, what I'll mainly remember is the laughter.
