Oh, Borat, you bounder

It is a touching, if familiar story: small-town boy leaves family behind and heads for the Big Apple, seeking knowledge and sexual fulfilment. But this is globetrotting Borat style, or Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Sacha Baron Cohen's latest film. Following the tried-and-tested Ali G method of reeling in unsuspecting interviewees who then make themselves ridiculous on camera (indeed, it was Da Ali G Show sketches that spawned Borat Sagdiyev), Borat clocks in at a squirm-inducing one hour and 22 minutes, and manages to be simultaneously hilarious and horrible. Often, it's not Borat doing the offending, though, but his hapless American victims, 'interviewed' by Borat and spewing forth racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted and nasty views.

One of the most intriguing things is trying to guess who is acting (Borat, his manager, his wife, an American prostitute) and who isn't (just about everyone else). There is the rodeo cowboy who rails against Muslims and gay people and the college frat brothers who pick Borat up in their camper van to share some beer and sexist rage (they, in particular, seem too bad to be true).

After watching this humiliation, you can't help but wonder what it's like to be on the receiving end. One of the highlights of the film is Borat's interview with the Veteran Feminists of America (VFA), a group set up to honour the American activists of feminism's Second Wave in the late Sixties and Seventies.

'Do you think that women should be educate?' begins a typical exchange in the film. 'Definitely,' says Linda Stein, who appears to dislike being addressed as Pussycat. 'But is it not a problem that the woman have a smaller brain?' asks Borat. 'He's wrong! He's wrong!' the women chorus in agitation. 'But the government scientist Dr Yamuka has proved it is size of squirrel,' challenges Borat.

'Somebody called me up and said that this guy from Kazakhstan was touring the country,' explains Grace Welch, certified yoga teacher and one of the three women interviewees. 'He said he wanted to get ideas so he could go back to Kazakhstan and tell his people what America is about. They didn't use the name Borat, but anyway I don't have HBO [the US channel which airs Borat clips on Da Ali G Show] so I didn't know who he was.' She was offered $200 for the interview, some of which she has donated to the VFA.

On the day of filming, Welch says she was surprised there was no warm-up period to run through questions with the interviewer. They were told that Borat had been delayed and he turned up just before filming started. Once the interview began, Welch sensed something odd was going on. 'He was wearing this cheap powder-blue suit with all the seams puckered. I thought that was really strange. When he started his questioning, I realised this guy was either a jerk or stupid, but I had no idea it was a spoof or a put-on. The camera crew and the producer were stony-faced the whole time, and Baron Cohen never came out of character, even after filming stopped. It's a very weird situation where your gut tells you something is amiss, but you're not sure and you don't want to spoil the party.'

Welch says she doesn't feel embarrassed or angry about being set up. 'What he does, he does very well, so I didn't feel anger. I was inclined very much to laugh during the event. Carole De Saram, who was sat next to me, poked me in the ribs. "Don't laugh," she whispered. "He'll get angry." Carole wanted to call the state department and have him deported.' Welch hoots with laughter.

'I was really very serious: telling him about the feminist movement blah, blah, blah and then he said, "How do I get in touch with Pamela Anderson?" Two of the women got steamed up and said, "All right. This is over." The producer was pleading, "Please come back. We're almost finished." I figured they didn't want to dump the footage as they'd laid out all this money. But when he referred to Condoleezza Rice as 'the Chocolate Lady', that was it. Borat saw it was going to break up and that we were walking out so he said, "Why don't we dance? In my country, we dance. Why don't you lift your shirts up and do the wild thing?" We just ripped off our mikes.'

Welch says she has a 'very humorous view of life in general' and that, far from being angry, she's seen all the trailers and is making copies of all the interviews. She still hasn't quite got to grips with the Borat phenomenon, however. She recently went to see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, thinking it was the Borat film. 'I had to soldier on to watch that. I don't usually go to those kind of pictures.'