Borat Movie London Premier

As webmaster of boratonline.co.uk I was fortunate enough to get tickets for the Borat Movie London Film Premiere. It was a great evening and a pleasure to see how a comedy character had grown from a minor bit part role on Channel 4's Da Ali G Show to the lead in the most talked about worldwide film comedies of 2006.

1. Before the movie

I arrived with my wife (she works in a field - NOT) at Leicester Square just to see the Borat train of prostitutes, peasant farmers and peasant children walk down the red carpet. It was raining down like, how do you say? Cats and dogs? No, piss? But Borat was OK, he had his Union Jack umbrella. The prostitutes, farmers and peasant children weren't OK, they were getting soaked.

We then watched from behind Borat as he addressed the crowd "I like England" and then sang his version of the Kazakhstan national anthem "Kazakhstan makes the best Potassium, other countries make inferior Potassium". A series of interviews followed, Sky, BBC all of the big news channels were there.

All the photographers/paparazzi were at the entrance to try and get the best shots of the celebrities, they briefly looked at the webmaster "Is that Anthony from Big Brother 7?", no just some nobody Geordie lad wearing a creased shirt from Top Man.

Inside the Odeon Theatre the Kazakhstan Prostitute girls were serving free wine made from fermented horse urine. They posed for a quick picture and then told us it was really apple juice from Tescos.

2. The movie

The movie was introduced by a petite pretty blonde woman from the London Film Festival. She thanked 20th Century Fox for letting them have the Borat premiere for the festival and then introduced Borat. Borat then walked down from the back of the theatre. High fives and kisses for random men. Shakes of the hands for the ladies. "Move out of the way little girl", he said to the London Film Festival woman.

Borat started by expressing his sadness at the recent death of Princess Diana. He said that everyone in Kazakhstan was buying the Elton John record Candles in the Wind. He told us that after much anti-semitic controversy the Kazakhstan Embassy had finally allowed the film after they had accepted that there was finally the "right amount". Everybody was then invited to an after-show party at his hotel room near Kings Cross where there would be naked wrestling and dog shooting out of the window.

As the lights went down Borat struggled to find his way off the stage, the spotlight went on him and he left embarrassed by all of the attention "stop looking at me now!".

The movie was pretty much the same cut as the one I saw at the screening a few months back. Click here for the review. The biggest laughs and applause came for the soon to be infamous naked wrestling scene.

3. After the movie

We were lucky enough to be invited back to the private party after the film. Celebrity spots included Daisy Donovan, Peaches Geldof, Trinny from Susannah and Trinny, Isla Fisher and a couple of the girls from Smack the Pony, but mainly it was Sacha's friends, family and movie people.

Amongst a few drinks I briefly chatted to Producer Dan Mazer, he asked how I'd enjoyed the film and commented that the Borat team check out the site when abroad for quick checks on how Borat is doing in the news. "You know more about Borat than we do!".

Later in the night Sacha thanked me for the site. "Part of the cult of Borat is down to boratonline.co.uk - an excellent site!". I wasted most of my "Sacha-chat" talking about his King Julian character from Madagascar that my two year old watches daily. The main reason Sacha did Madagascar was to do a film for his young nephews, then they ended up not liking it as it got too scary half way through.

Other snippets of information include that Sacha's favourite Borat memory over the years was "probably the wine drinking episode in the USA". When asked whether this was the end of Borat, or could there be a follow up movie the reply was "who knows". Had Sacha had fun doing Borat over the years, "It's been amazing".

Leaving the party at midnight, the paparazzi were still standing in the rain in the alleyway. "Is that the ugly one from Ant and Dec?", "No just that lad with the creased shirt from Top Man."