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Goodness Gracious Me!
Cast
Writers
Producer
Executive Producer
Production
"Kiss My Chuddies!" Goodness Gracious Me stars Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir and Nina Wadia.The show has run for three series on BBC 2, and is acclaimed, rightly or wrongly, as heralding a new wave of Asian comedy on our screens. Undoubtedly their most famous sketch is 'Going for an English,' Indian yobs abusing the waiter in an English restaurant in Bombay, and ordering 'the blandest meal on the menu.' The GGM characters include Smeeta Smitten - showbiz kitten, the overly English Kapoors, (pronounced Coopers) and the Bhangramuffins - Asian rastas! Meera Syal has the highest profile of the quartet; she was already a succesful novelist and actress before the series. Her novel 'Anita and Me' won the Betty Trask prize. GGM won the Best Comedy Award 1998, with audiences of over 4 million, 80% of whom were white, and Syal was awarded the MBE in 1997. Sanjeev Bhaskar After years as a struggling actor, Sanjeev teamed up with
musician Nitin Sawhney in 1994 to form an Asian comedy act called 'Secret
Asians'. Their popularity grew and they were discovered by the producer
of the multicultural sketch show 'The Real McCoy'., who brought together
Sanjeev, Meera, Nina and Kulvinder and 'Goodness Gracious Me' was born.
Sanjeev has been equally successful outside GGM starring in British sitcom
'Small Potatoes' and Hollywood blockbuster 'Notting Hill'. More recently
he presented a three-part series for Channel 4 on the treatise of love
Kama Sutra, entitled 'Position Impossible'. Meet the Kumar's! We've all suffered embarrassing moments at the hands of our parents but few of us have suffered badly enough to make a TV show about it. But that's exactly what Sanjeev Bhaskar (Goodness Gracious Me) has done in his new chat show/sitcom, The Kumars At No 42. Sanjeev Kumar (Sanjeev Bhaskar) is a professional chat show host who films his weekly show in a studio. The problem is his studio is attached to the house he shares with his mum Madhuri (Indira Joshi), his granny Sushila (Meera Syal) and his dad Ashwin (Vincent Ebrahim). So when his guests arrive they are subjected to a thorough interrogation by the entire Kumar family before they even start their interview. So what exactly did Sanjeev's parents do to warrant such an extreme reaction? What's On just had to find out... What's On: Where exactly did the idea for The Kumars At No 42 come from?
WO: How do your parents feel about being the subject of your work? SB: They don't recognise themselves! It was the same in Goodness Gracious Me. They see a character and laugh at the character's behaviour and mannerisms but always think it's somebody else in the family. WO: Who can we expect to see getting the Kumar treatment during the series? SB: We've got a very impressive list of guests. Michael Parkinson, Richard E Grant, Ben Fogle, Melinda Messenger, Davina McCall, Graham Norton, Charlie Dimmock, Art Malek, Konnie Huq, Warren Clarke, Faye Ripley and Minnie Driver. WO: How did you manage to get so many high profile guests to appear? SB: They just agreed to do it. We were amazed when we got Minnie Driver but she said she used to have tapes of Goodness Gracious Me sent to LA and were like "Wow, that's really cool!". In the end she was a brilliant guest, a real laugh. WO: Who was your favourite guest and why? SB: I didn't have a favourite, I thought they were all great. WO: Who were you most nervous about interviewing? SB: Graham Norton, his show is so unpredictable and I was worried he would make me laugh. Also Davina because I've always had a crush on her. WO: How did your guests cope with the Kumar experience? SB: On the whole they coped extremely well. Richard E Grant really got into the spirit of it and even ate the samosas Madhuri cooked for the visitors. Charlie Dimmock's reaction was just to giggle through the whole thing - I think she didn't quite know what to make of it! WO: So do you think you'll be giving up comedy to follow in Parky's footsteps? SB: I think Parky's quite funny! No, I'll always be involved in comedy. Kulvinder Ghir Kulvinder has come a long way since his market trader days back in Yorkshire. He no longer sells watches and clothes, but entertains millions with his comic flare. Thank goodness as he is one of the most talented comedians on the current circuit! His transition into comedy wasn't easy. As a young man, worried how his parents would react to his passion, he would secretly go off to comedy clubs to perform. Conquering tough audiences gave him the confidence to then move into the wide world of radio, film and television. One quarter of the highly successful 'Goodness Gracious Me' team, he has also starred in 'Casualty' and 'The Bill'. He can be seen the Casualty spin off series 'Holby City'. Kulvinder is most well know for his GGM character, 'Chunky Lafunga' a stereotype of a slimey Bollywood hunk, complete with hairy chest and medallion. Other characters include 'Bhangra Man', devised by Network East's very own funny man, Sanjeev Kohli! Goodness Gracious Me has finished its third series and there's a 50 minute special to look forward to sometime. Most of was shot in India and it's jam packed with lots of hilarious sketches and old favourites like 'The Coopers' are still in tow! |
Meera Syal Meera Syal is a woman of many talents. A successful writer and actress since the year she left university, Meera has written and starred in a wide range of television, radio and theatre productions. Most recently she has co-written and starred in the first Asian comedy sketch show to be broadcast on the BBC, 'Goodness Gracious Me', first heard on Radio 4. Following its success the programme was developed for television last year, and its popularity thrust the talents of the team into the public eye, with fresh, innovative comedy appealing to both mainstream and Asian audiences. The show was a huge success, and even beat The Fast Show and Harry Enfield and Chums for the title of 'Best Comedy Series' at the last British Comedy Awards. A third television series begins early next year and the team successfully toured the country in early 1999. Meera is very proud of her Indian roots and culture and was aware of
her racial difference from an early age. At school however, Meera was
not a victim of racism, but was picked on because she was ‘mouthy’.
“I’d grown up with the lads in the yard, I’d hit anyone
if they called me names… we were all at the bottom of the social
pile. We had that in common.” From a young age Meera wanted to do something creative with her life
but didn’t feel that she could. Her parents had hoped for her to
become a doctor. When she told them at 15, that she didn’t want a
career in medicine, her parents accepted it. But her father gave her some
advice ‘Whatever you do, be bloody good at it, better than the white
She complimented her interest in music by learning to play the guitar,
while worked hard academically which led to her achieving three A’s
at A Level in English, French and Spanish. She could have gone to Oxford
but felt she would be uncomfortable there. She instead She didn’t do much acting at university, “I wasn’t picked
for the good parts.” Therefore Meera decided to write a play for
herself, 'One of Us’, scripted by her friend Jacqui Shapiro. The
story was about a young Asian girl who runs away from home because she
wants to be an actress. She rejects her parents and becomes intoxicated
with her white friend, Carol. She says this is a trap she fell into herself.
“There was a long time that I wanted to have blonde hair, be Meera took the play to the Edinburgh Festival, and that same year it won the National Student Drama Award. A London theatre director saw her in the play, and offered her the chance of an Equity card. So Meera decided against her plans of going on to study for an MA, and started to act. Like a miracle, she says, she started to get thinner. She finds writing ‘lonely and hard’, but acting ‘pure joy’. For seven years after leaving university Meera acted in London at the Royal Court Theatre, before receiving a call from the BBC, who were looking for an Asian woman to co-write a script. They’d seen her in ‘One of Us’, and wondered if she’d give it a go. “I had no experience of television whatsoever. I suppose it just shows how few Asian women writers there were.” She took up the BBC’s offer, and wrote ‘My Sister Wife’, a 3-part BBC television series. “The pleasure of writing as an Asian woman is the pleasure of exploding stereotypes.” She didn’t want to write all the usual cliches, and didn’t. She next wrote a film for Channel 4, ‘Bhaji on the Beach’, which received mixed reviews. It was complimented for it’s realistic portrayal of the lives of British Asian women, while criticised for the apparent negative representations of Asian men, a few seen as controlling and dominant wife-beaters. She then went on to write her first novel ‘Anita and Me’ (1996), a fictionalised, nostalgic account of her childhood growing up in the Midlands in the 1960s, as a second - generation immigrant of Punjabi parents. Meera continues to be heard on BBC radio, in a variety of formats - of course comedy (Goodness Gracious Me; The World As We Know It, 1999) but also drama (Legal Affairs, 1996) and variety shows. She is also a journalist and writes for quality newspapers such as the Guardian (30/6/98). Meera has made guest appearances on a wide range of programmes, most recently Room 101 (August 99), Late Lunch (3/2/99) and 'Ruby' (1997) but has also had cameo roles in 'Absolutely Fabulous' ("New Best Friend", 1994) and 'Drop The Dead Donkey' (1996). She also recently starred in the BBC sitcom 'Keeping Mum' (1998, below). Television Credits: Goodness Gracious Me, 1998-1999 Filmography: Girls' Night, 1997 Meera grew up watching ‘The Likely Lads’ and ‘ Steptoe and Son’ with her father. She says that it’s fantastic sense of humour and it’s irony is the best thing that England has given her. “You don’t getirony in India, you get parody.” “I do believe that you have a writing muscle like any other muscle. I think it’s really good to try to write every day, even if it’s crap, even if it’s a letter to somebody that you have to compose and use your emotions in, it’s all really good because it helps develop your voice and that is in the end what makes you want to read a book. It’s not necessarily that it’s the most fantastic story ever told. I mean what stories are original? We tell the same ones over and over again. It is the tone of a voice, a writing voice that makes you want to read something and that I think you only find through writing a lot.” Nina Wadia - in her own words! "I was born in Bombay and attended the London Theatre School. I am an actress, a dancer, a choreographer, a singer, a writer and I am probably best known for starring in the award winning BBC comedy Goodness Gracious Me. My career has so far spanned more than a decade of theatre, radio and film ranging from a Mark Rylance production of Macbeth to modern dramas such as Radio 4's Esmond in India. My film work has included Sixth Happiness, Such A Long Journey and Flight. More recently I have had guest starring roles in Holby City, The Vicar of Dibley, Kiss Me Kate, The Strangerers, Comic Relief - Debt Wish 2000, Bremner and Perfect World. My awards include Greatest Achievement by an Actress from the Society
For Black Arts in Britain, two Sony Awards, a British comedy award, Into
Leadership Award 2000, Cosmopolitan Magazine's Woman of Achievement 2000
Award for the Arts category." Acknowledgements Related Links http://www.beebfun.com/ggm.htm Indian Express article about British Asian life on the mid-1990s: |
