When Ali G made him an international celebrity, Hampstead Garden Suburb’s Sacha Baron Cohen did what all ambitious celebs did and upped sticks for LA. But now, I can reveal, the A-list comic genius is returning home.

The star and his equally fabulous wife Isla Fisher, who converted to Judaism before they married in 2010, are house hunting in the UK.

The pair actually left LA for Australia, where Isla, whose family originally were Scottish, grew up, in 2020 - inspired partly by the changes they had seen in the USA during the Trump years. They saw out Covid in Australia – moving first to Sydney and then Perth where Isla’s family still live and Isla spoke last year about an idyllic life of beaches and barbeques.

‘I’m the happiest when I’m home,’ she said. ‘I miss it when I’m not here. I don’t feel any pressure when I’m in Australia. I don’t have to say or do or be anything. I mean, I don’t even have to wear shoes.’

But with the pandemic over, it became increasingly difficult to manage the strains of work being mainly in the USA and the UK but living so far away – it takes around 19 hours to fly from Perth to Los Angeles.

Moving to the UK, where Sacha’s family remains, is a compromise. They will also retain a house in Los Angeles where Sacha is working on a new project.

The pair are famously un-starry. They have been together for 22 years after meeting in 2001 at a ‘pretentious party’ in Sydney with Sacha later describing how they bonded over ‘take the mick out of the other people in the party’. He claimed it was love at first sight adding: ‘I knew instantly. I don’t know if she did. It’s taken her about 20 years to know.’

Sacha in recent years has also become an activist against antisemitism, using humour to attack Trump, Kanye West and Holocaust denial on Facebook.