Morgana Robinson is not the center of this one; Sacha Baron Cohen is. On Sunday, he led 300 Ali G look-alikes through London, turning the launch of Ali G: Who Iz I? into a public walkabout built around one of his oldest characters.
Cohen wore a yellow Ali G hoodie and matching pants while the group moved past London landmarks, then finished at Cineworld Leicester Square. Amazon MGM Studios is set to release Ali G: Who Iz I? in theaters for one week on Oct. 23, a tight rollout that gives the stunt a clear purpose: keep the character visible before the film reaches Prime Video.
London landmarks and 300 fans
The route took the group by double-decker buses, a boat party on the Thames, and photo stops near Big Ben and Marble Arch. They also ordered hundreds of hamburgers at the McDonald’s in Leicester Square, a detail that made the promotion feel less like a standard premiere stop and more like a scripted street event built for pictures.
At the end of the tour, Cohen awarded a winner for the Ali G Lookalike Competition at Cineworld Leicester Square. The official Instagram account for the character posted multiple videos from the day, including one in which the fans recited “Booyakasha!”
Ali G’s long screen run
Da Ali G Show debuted in the U.K. in 2000 and later aired on HBO, which is where the character’s wider run started to harden into a repeatable screen property. Ali G made his big-screen debut in Ali G Indahouse in 2002, and the character’s persistence still gives Amazon MGM Studios a built-in recognition factor that most new releases do not have.
That library matters because the event was not just nostalgia. It was a marketing bridge from a character with a 2000 television origin and a 2002 film past to a one-week theatrical window now, with Prime Video waiting after the run.
Ali G’s own version
Ali G’s statement says the event went without trouble and jokes that TK Maxx on Oxford Street had its busiest day in a decade because of over 300K worf of goods shoplifted. The same statement also says, “Me iz well proud to have staged de biggest event in London since de Paris Olympics 3 years ago — de bloke who counts Donald Trumps crowds said dere woz over 800,000 Ali Gs on de streets!”
It then adds, “De next biggest crowdz in London will be for me movie Ali G: Who Iz I? in cinemas for one weekend only October 23nd and available shortly after at Egham Market on DVDs me haz burned. Westside.” The joke lands because the rollout is deliberately small on screen and oversized in public, and that contrast is the whole point of the campaign.
For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: the film is being positioned as a one-week theatrical event on Oct. 23, not a wide release, and the London stunt was designed to make that short window feel unavoidable.
