Satirist Chris Morris, well known for TV programmes like Brasseye, has scripted a new film about British jihadists.

The project is known as Four Lions and is described in publicity material:

In three years of research, Chris Morris has spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, cry for their mums, shoot each other's feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking. A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber looks puzzled and says what was the question again? On millennium eve, five jihadis set out to ram a US warship. They slipped their boat into the water and carefully stacked it with explosives. It sank.

Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it's also about berks.

Four Lions is a funny, thrilling fictional story that illuminates modern British jihad with an insight beyond anything else in our culture. It plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or alienating
the entire culture from which they emerge. It understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous. As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis.

Chris Morris is hoping to have the film funded by donations. People interested are asked to send an email to fundingmentalism@warpfilms.com. They'll then they put you on the mailing list.

Satire is an effective weapon in the fight against extremism, and Chris Morris's new film Four Lions and revamped show Jihad! The Musical are the latest examples.

The biggest British comedy event of the month, maybe even the year, is about to take place – thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. On January 23, the Sundance Film Festival in Utah is poised to premiere Four Lions.

This is the long-awaited debut feature film by Chris Morris, the interview-shy maverick who shot to fame in the Nineties with the groundbreaking Radio 4 news satire On the Hour, and its TV spin-off, The Day Today – and cemented his reputation for high-end pranksterism with his solo Channel 4 vehicle Brass Eye.

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Chris Morris's 2010 UK terrorist comedy was passed 15 uncut by the BBFC with the consumer advise: Contains strong language and sex references.

The BBFC explain their decision as follows:

Four Lions is a satirical comedy about British Muslims who aspire to be suicide bombers. It has been passed 15 for strong language and sex references.

There are over fifty uses of strong language, mostly in English but several in untranslated Urdu, which go beyond what is acceptable under the BBFC's Guidelines at 12A/12 where The use of strong language (for example, 'fuck') must be infrequent. In terms of sex references, strong verbal references to sexual behaviour are permitted at 15 and the verbal descriptions of sex in this work fell short of containing the strongest references which might have placed it at 18 instead.

The theme is treated in a manner designed to satirise, rather than to promote or endorse, terrorist activity and is therefore appropriately contained at 15 where No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds. Few of the range of individuals and groups portrayed in the film escape its comic and satirical scope: this may give rise to offence in some quarters, but this would not have been mitigated by artificially raising the category to 18.

Four Lions also contains moderate comic violence, and self referential uses of Paki which in this comic context are not endorsed.

The Daily Mail has such a way with words:

Channel 4 is to spark 'outrage' by airing a controversial comedy film about Muslim suicide bombers as part a season of programmes to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

In a move set to 'shock' TV viewers, the broadcaster is to show Four Lions, the 2010 film by Brass Eye comedian Chris Morris, just days before the memorials take place for the terrorist outrages in New York.

Insiders at the Channel 4 have revealed that Morris was looking to create even more controversy by trying to air the film on the actual day of the anniversary, but bosses at the channel have resisted this.

Four Lions is a comedy depicting the activities of a group of home-grown and incompetent British terrorists who plan to kill thousands of people at the London Marathon in a terror attacks, but end up bungling the operation.

Channel 4 will premiere the film alongside factual documentaries about heroes from the emergency services and a reconstruction documentary about the killing of Osama Bin Laden for the season of programmes.