Revolting (Tuesdays) is the BBC2 comedy series that spawned the now-infamous sketch ‘Real Housewives of Isis’. It has been watched on the BBC’s Facebook page nearly 30 million times and rightly so because it is fearless, funny and near the knuckle.
A pastiche of reality TV shows set in places like Beverly Hills, the sketch depicts three young British jihadi brides brightly discussing their domestic lives in some Raqqa-like hellhole. ‘Ali bought me a new chain,’ boasts one, ‘which is eight feet long. So I can almost get outside, which is great.’ Cue shot of black-hijabed housewife lurching towards the doorway of her bombed-out home, dragging the cooker to which she has been leashed.
In another scene, one housewife proudly does a twirl as she shows off her new style acquisition: a fetching suicide vest. But, oh the embarrassment: in walks another friend wearing an identical outfit. ‘Oh. My. God. It was so cringe. Hashtag Matchy Matchy,’ comments one of them in a piece to camera.
The humour isn’t subtle: ‘This is my sixth marriage. Been married five times,’ one confides to the camera. Then there’s an explosion in the background. ‘Six times,’ she corrects herself, with a wry, what-can-you-do? smile. But it packs a punch because it’s so dark and courageous (barely a handful of TV dramas will dare touch the subject of Islamist terrorism, let alone comedies: this must be about the first to do so since Four Lions) and well observed.
Sure, if these were real jihadi brides, they wouldn’t be in hijabs but in garb so unrevealing it would make even a burka look like a bikini. But the characters and the acting and the situation ring true: the forced domestic normality in the face of grotesque adversity (‘It’s only three days to the beheading and I’ve got no idea what I’m going to wear’), the Brummie and northern accents, the teen-ie giggling and hashtags and selfies.
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