Baddiel: 'Infidel almost wasn't made'

David Baddiel has claimed that people are scared of subverting political correctness.

The comedian explained that his new film The Infidel, which follows a Muslim man who finds out that he is Jewish, handles issues that people are afraid to confront.

According to The Mirror, he said: "I thought this was an issue that people aren't dealing with, certainly comically.

"More and more people seem to be frightened of race and religion as a thing to talk about, and not just because they're frightened of it but because we've had years and years and years of political correctness and people no longer make jokes about it and I sort of thought, 'Why not?'

"Because obviously if it's not coming from a racist perspective then why shouldn't you be able to make jokes about something that a lot of people think about and a lot of people are worried about?"

Baddiel added that he had struggled to get the film made because so many people were worried about its controversial storyline.

"It was originally commissioned by the BBC and the BBC decided not to do it because of those very reasons," he explained. "It wasn't an easy movie to get made, it wasn't an easy movie to get finance for. People were straightforward about this. They said, 'We think it's funny, we think it's a good story but we're worried about the reaction to this', or, 'We're worried about the reprisals'."

The Infidel is due for release on April 9.

> Click here for our review of The Infidel