Families who lost relatives in the 2005 London bomb attacks are appealing to cinemas not to show a British comedy about four aspiring suicide bombers.

Four Lions was created by satirist Chris Morris, who was also behind the controversial Channel 4 show Brass Eye.

The film – on general release from Friday – focuses on four men travelling to London to target the marathon.

Grahame Russell, whose son was among the 52 killed on 7 July 2005, accused its makers of being morally bankrupt.

‘Too raw’

Graham Foulkes, who also lost his son in the bombings, said he and other relatives were appealing to cinemas not to show the British-funded film.

He acknowledged that humour had a part when it came to examining serious issues but said for his family, and others like them, the tragedy was still too raw.

Chris Morris has described the film as showing “the Dad’s Army side to terrorism”, as four incompetent jihadists plan an attack.

In January when the film was premiered, Arsher Ali, who plays one of the would-be terrorists, told the BBC the film was first and foremost, a comedy.

“It’s a dynamic of a bunch of guys who get together and mess everything up.

“Terrorism is in the news almost every day, but there are little stories within those things that are inherently comic and inherently human.

“A film like this is obviously a very strong counterpoint to the very serious side of it, which none of us condone, but there are human stories that need to be told, which can be quite touching.”

Last week, many of the relatives’ families attended a pre-inquest hearing. The full inquests are due to be held in October.

Hollywood film-makers including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have called on the Iranian government to release director Jafar Panahi.

A petition also signed by Robert De Niro, Robert Redford and Francis Ford Coppola, denounced the arrest of Panahi on 1 March.

“We… stand in solidarity with a fellow film-maker”, the petition read.

Panahi, known for his social realism, has made several films critical of Iran’s regime.

The group of film-makers and actors “strongly urge the Iranian government to release Mr Panahi immediately”, the petition continued.

Plain clothes police broke into Panahi’s family home and arrested him, his wife and daughter and 15 other guests, his son Panah told reporters last month.

The Tehran prosecutor’s office has confirmed the arrest to reporters but denied it was connected to politics.

“The arrest of Jafar Panahi is not because he is an artist or for political reason,” prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told the Isna news agency.

“He is accused of some crimes and was arrested with another person following an order by a judge.”

Last year a travel ban was imposed on Panahi by the authorities after he appeared wearing green – the colour of opposition supporters – at the Montreal film festival.

He was also briefly arrested after attending a memorial to student Neda Agha Soltan, killed at an opposition rally last June.

Violent protest

Panahi is a past winner of the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion award.

His most recent film is Offside, which won the 2006 Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear award.

It tells the story of a group of female football fans who try to sneak into Iran’s World Cup qualifying match against Bahrain but are arrested.

In Iran, women are banned from attending men’s sporting events.

At least 30 protesters have been killed in clashes since last year’s disputed elections, although the opposition says more than 70 have died. Thousands have been detained and some 200 activists remain behind bars.

At least nine have been sentenced to death, and two have been executed already.

Some of those arrested include former ministers and the sister of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi.

The author Alan Sillitoe has died aged 82 at Charing Cross Hospital in London, his family has said.

The Nottingham-born novelist emerged in the 1950s as one of the “Angry Young Men” of British fiction.

His son David said he hoped his father would be remembered for his contribution to literature.

His novels included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, both of which were made into films.

The two books are regarded as classic examples of kitchen sink dramas reflecting life in the mid 20th century Britain.

He was born on 4 March 1928 – the second son of an illiterate tannery labourer who was often out of work.

Rejected celebrity

Later, he described life growing up in a poor household.

“We lived in a room in Talbot Street whose four walls smelled of leaking gas, stale fat and layers of mouldering wallpaper,” he said.

He said his mother burned his first semi-fictional work when he was a 12-year-old. It was about the behaviour of his cousins but she felt it to be too “revealing”.

He then left school at 14 to work in the Raleigh bicycle factory in his hometown before joining the Royal Air Force (RAF) four years later.

He worked as a wireless operator in Malaya but, while in the RAF, he contracted tuberculosis and spent 16 months in hospital where he began to write novels.

After travelling to France, Spain and Majorca – where he met the poet Robert Graves – he wrote the pioneering novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Published in 1958, the tale about the life of hard-working factory employee Arthur Seaton won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award and received instant critical acclaim.

It was adapted as a film in 1960, starring Albert Finney.

His story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, focusing on a rebellious boy with a talent for running, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1959. It was also turned into a film, starring Tom Courtenay, in 1962.

The award-winning writer was married to the American poet Ruth Fainlight, with whom he had David, and adopted daughter Susan.

Although he tended to spend most of his time in London, they also lived in France, Spain, Tangier and Israel.

Poet Ian McMillan paid tribute to the author, describing him as a “marvellous prose stylist” whose work had a “kind of Midlands sonority to it”.

“He was a man who attempted to capture the majesty and drama of ordinary life,” he said.

“He wrote this great line which said ‘the art of writing is to explain the complications of the human soul with the simplicity that can be universally understood’ and I think that’s what he achieved.”

Sillitoe rejected the celebrity life and all he wanted to do “was sit in his house in London and write and write and write”, he added.

As well as numerous novels he published several volumes of poetry, children’s books and was the author of several stage and screen plays.

In 1995, his autobiography Life Without Armour was well received. In 2007, he published Gadfly – an account of his travels in Russia.

In 2008, he was recognised for his Nottingham roots and given freedom of the city.

Earlier this month, along with others with the same honour he was due to herd sheep across Trent Bridge, as was his right. However he had to pull out because of illness.

Last year, he appeared on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs, where he said if he were cast away his ideal companions would be a record of Le Ca Ira sung by Edith Piaf, a copy of the RAF navigation manual, The Air Publication 1234, and a communications receiver – but for receiving only.

Although he once said he preferred to be thought of as a poet rather than a novelist, it was his prose that attracted the more critical success.