If you've never sampled the delights of freshly-caught Yemeni salmon, don't worry. Neither has anyone else. Yemen has no permanent rivers and, consequently, no salmon.

'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' is the title of a comic/satirical novelby Paul Torday which won a couple of awards and was serialised on BBC radio after it was published in 2007.

Now, work has begun on a film version starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, with scenes shot in London, Scotland and Morocco (though not Yemen).

It's the story of an impossible project, inspired by the wealthy "Sheikh Muhammad ibn Zaidi bani Tihama" (Egyptian actor Amr Waked) who owns a Scottish estate and dreams of introducing salmon fishing into Yemen. 

Unfortunately, the British prime minister and his spin doctor hear about the idea too – and like it. They decide that it's just what is needed to improve east-west relations and provide a "positive" news story to divert attention from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Dr Alfred Jones, a scientist played by Ewan McGregor, is given the unenviable task of implementing it.

The book is predominantly a satire on British politics during the Blair era though, as Tim Mackintosh-Smith pointed out in hisreview, the Yemeni sheikh comes from a long line of literary characters – "wise men from a wise east" who "showed up the social absurdities and spiritual shortcomings of the west". 

At a deeper level, the book also raises questions about belief in the impossible. In the words of Mackintosh-Smith: "If much of post-Christendom has ceased to believe in the impossible, some of it has also ceased to believe in belief itself and, worse, has come to fear the belief of others. That fear today is big and very dangerous business."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 22 August 2010.