Backstage with… David Baddiel

One of Britain’s best-known comedians, David Baddiel has adapted his 2010 film ‘The Infidel’ – about Mahmud, a Muslim man who discovers he is in fact Jewish – as a new musical.

Was there a political intent behind ‘The Infidel’ when you wrote it?
‘Sort of. When I was growing up I don’t think Muslims and Jews were considered to be opposites. That’s something that’s happened in the last 15 years with increasing radicalisation on both sides. What Mahmud discovers is that Muslims and Jews aren’t that different after all, which sounds glib but actually is an incredibly important statement – theologically, Muslims and Jews are incredibly similar.’

Why make a musical?
‘The stage rights were knocking about and the producer of the movie kept saying, “You should do something with them.” I didn’t see the point in just turning it into a play. But then when I thought about Mahmud, he’s a bit like Jesus in “Jesus Christ Superstar”, a bit like Elder Price in “The Book of Mormon”. A classic musical hero, very confident in who he is, whose world falls apart around him.’

How did you come to write the songs with Sacha Baron-Cohen’s brother, Erran?
‘I talked to Nitin Sawhney, I had three meetings with Tim Minchin, and then I thought of Erran. He was the film’s composer, but I wasn’t sure if he was a songwriter. Then we spent a couple of days at his little studio and I thought: Fucking hell, he’s incredible. There’s lots of other things, but music is the real reason to do a musical.’

Are you expecting it to annoy a lot of people?
‘It’s not a blasphemous story, which sets it apart from “Jerry Springer” and “Mormon”– the jokes are about people, not deities. It does push lots of buttons, but it doesn’t do anything that would lead to the theatre getting burnt down.

Is there any correlation between this and your last stand-up show, ‘Fame: Not the Musical’?
‘No, but it has confused a few people. Some people I invited to that show thought it was a musical. And there was a couple who left after ten minutes because they thought they were coming to see “Fame: The Musical”.’

You’ve already had big musical success with football song ‘Three Lions’. Do you still get money from that or was it a charity thing?
‘No, no, we get the money, not as much as you might think. I tell you one thing, it’s not helped by England being shit. Whenever England are in a tournament, they play it a lot and then the minute they go out they stop for two years.’.

'The Infidel – The Musical' is at Theatre Royal Stratford East, until Nov 2.