Korma comedian (and a raita too)

By BRIAN VINER

There are three of us in this interview: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kim from BBC publicity, and me. We are in Bhaskar's dressing room, in the bowels of the Television Centre. Unfortunately, there are only two chairs. "I'll sit on the floor," says Bhaskar. "I'm Indian. Sitting on the floor is my heritage."

In fact, Bhaskar grew up in Hounslow, Middlesex, where racial-identity issues were muddied by the prejudice he felt from Asians as well as whites. "I got it from the white kids for obvious reasons, but also from Asian kids who said I should nail my colours to the mast. They were saying, 'You can't have those white friends' and I was like, 'You're kidding, I've known these guys since I was 6'.

"At the time, the late 70s, the Southall riots were kicking off and the National Front was outside our school recruiting. Funnily enough, the only person they recruited was this Sikh kid.

We convinced him that their policy of deportation was free of charge, so he went over to a guy with a clipboard, and said, 'You want to send us home, don't you?' The guy went, 'Yeah,' so this Sikh kid signed and wandered off. There was complete shock on the NF guy's face.

"Of course, for the rest of us being sent home meant something to do with the No 110 bus. We were like, 'You're paying for us to go home? But it only costs 15p'."

In conversation, as in the television sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me, and his chat show, The Kumars at No. 42, Bhaskar eloquently and relentlessly extracts comedy from his ethnic background.

"The Kumars," he tells me, "has gone down well in Australia. But there was a comment on an internet chat site there saying [cue perfect Aussie accent], 'This is a load of rubbish. We should be past a time when we have to use race as a basis for humour.' And I thought, well, thanks. That pretty much leaves me out in the cold. If I do a drama based on the Asian community, will you say we should be past using race as a basis for drama?"

Is there such a thing as a good racist joke? "I think there are good jokes based on race. Let me tell you about this uncle of mine who came over from India at the same time as my dad. This uncle, incidentally, had a habit of starting to tell what sounded like a funny story, then suddenly taking a detour in the middle.

"I remember him saying [cue perfect Indian accent], 'It reminds me of a lady who lived in my village in India. She had one very small ear and one huge ear; one tiny ear on this side, one huge ear on this side. And she got leukaemia and died. It was very tragic'." The tragedy notwithstanding, Kim and I are laughing. Bhaskar is laughing, too.

"What was the other one? Oh yes. He said, 'There was a man in my village with a beautiful singing voice. But he used to wear this ridiculous hat. The hat was too small for his head. Hit by a train. Killed instantly.'

"Anyway, this same uncle once said, 'Black people make natural criminals'. My sister and I said, 'Oh, come on. You can't say that.' And he said, 'I'm not saying it as a judgmental thing. It's just that most robberies take place at night, and they're like shadows. They're all cut out to be criminals.'

"I said, 'That's ridiculous. What about Nelson Mandela?' And my uncle said, 'Do you know how long he spent in prison?' I said, 'Yeah, but it wasn't for nicking a stereo.'

"Now there's a funny story, based on race, but not denigrating anyone other than that individual."

Bhaskar has had 38 years to formulate his views on racism and comedy. As a child at a school where 30 per cent of the pupils were Asian, he gauged how offensive a
television programme was by the extent and nature of the name-calling in the playground the next day.

Take the sitcom Till Death Us Do Part. To lots of British people, Alf Garnett seemed like a heroic, right-wing figure, and its aftermath was kids doing Paki jokes.

"I actually think Till Death Us Do Part missed a trick," says Bhaskar. "It was fine to have Alf Garnett mouthing off, with the other characters as the liberal conscience, but the other characters never had lines as good as his. In comedy, you're attracted to the people with the best lines, like Chandler in Friends. Having Tony Booth going [cue perfect Scouse-git accent], 'Oh, come on!' wasn't exactly a witty riposte."

Bhaskar's sharp wit doubtless served him well enough during the seven years he spent in marketing, but has been put to rather better use in the seven years since.

Since 1995, when he joined Goodness Gracious Me, which was then on BBC radio, his career has soared, as an actor and writer. The production company Miramax has given him a writing contract, apparently because boss Harvey Weinstein so enjoyed Goodness Gracious Me. Bhaskar had a cameo opposite Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, and he's about to open in the West End play Art.

Meanwhile, his parents — who, when he spoke of wanting to become an actor, said, "Don't you mean doctor?" — are thrilled with his success. If only he would let them find him a wife, he says, their happiness would be complete.

- INDEPENDENT