Revolting on The Real Housewives of Isis: We aim to tackle extremism The satirists behind a controversial BBC sketch depicting “The Real Housewives of Isis” have argued that comedians must be allowed […]

The satirists behind a controversial BBC sketch depicting “The Real Housewives of Isis” have argued that comedians must be allowed to tackle religious fundamentalism.

The sketch is due to feature in the first episode of Revolting, the new BBC2 series by Heydon Prowse and Jolyon Rubinstein, the duo behind the Bafta-winning The Revolution Will Be Televised.

Shot during a turbulent year, ripe for satire, Revolting’s mix of political stunts and scripted sketches targets racist Brexit voters, Boris Johnson, Southern Trains and the NHS budget deficit.

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The most daring sequence is a mock reality show, called The Real Housewives of Isis, which depicts Western women who are groomed online by Islamic extremists.

It opens with a hijab-wearing woman, who met her husband online, saying: “It’s only three days to the beheading and I’ve got no idea what to wear.”

Another woman parades in front of her friends wearing a suicide bomb vest, and asks: “What do you think? Ahmed surprised me with it yesterday.”

“You’ll look gorgeous,” one of the wives says, tapping out a “death to the west” hashtag and “Isis emojis” on her phone.

Tension rises when another wife turns up wearing the same suicide vest. “What a complete bitch. She knew I had that jacket,” says the first woman.

Isis sketch targets online radicalisation

The target of the sketch is fundamentalist Islam’s repressive attitude towards women. “Ali bought me a new chain which is 8ft long. So I can get outside which is great,” says a hijab-wearing woman.

Another, scrubbing floors, says she was seduced in a chat room by her husband who said nothing about her domestic servitude.

Prowse told the i paper: “It’s important not to pull your punches in satire. You have to be fearless or it undermines your credibility. You can’t go after David Cameron for five years like we did and not go after Islamic State.”

“The target is online grooming,” said Rubinstein. “It’s about people who are vulnerable to these kind of approaches. We’ve had the ‘White Widow’ (British-born terror suspect Samantha Lewthwaite) so this is actually happening to women here.”

Another provocative sequence features Prowse as “Ukip campaigner Dennis Pound” visiting Loughton in Essex, where 63 per cent voted Leave in the EU referendum, to canvas for new policies.

He elicits opinions on immigrants from people on the street including “I’d shoot them all”, “they come to this country raping everyone” and “I’d like to be the person than hangs them”.

Attitudes have soured since The Revolution Will Be Televised first aired on BBC3 in 2012.

Public ‘openly racist’ since Brexit

“It’s disturbing that people seem much less worried about airing extreme views now than when we began five years ago,” said Prowse. “Before people would say ‘I’m not a racist but…’ Now they are openly racist. We are slipping back to the fascism that existed in the 1930s and 40s.”

Prowse, who presented the BBC2 programme The Town That Took on the Taxman, which helped small businesses in Wales set up the same tax avoidance schemes as multinational corporations, said the BBC had approved the Isis sketch and supported the duo’s provocative attempts to expose hypocrisy in public life.

Rubinstein added: “We feel there’s an urgent need to speak out about these issues in 2017. It’s a mixture of comedy and protest.

“We feel we’re enfranchising people with knowledge they didn’t have before. We want to spark a discussion so people get out of their bubble and go and actually do something about it.”

:: Revolting begins on BBC2, Jan 3, 10pm.

@adamsherwin10