S2 EP6: Sanjeev Bhaskar on his ground-breaking comedy show The Kumars at No. 42, 'browning up’ in 1970s comedy, and his outrageous rider demands

28:54So that's what Gandhi wanted. Is that dream still alive in any form, the idea of a state that unifies Pakistan, Bangladesh and India? You don't hear about that very much. I don't think there is. I don't think there is. I think there's now almost too much history that's happened for that to walk back. But certainly there is maybe a quieter voice now than it has been in the past. But an idea of a secular India, I think, is still quite a strong idea. Although that has been eroded by various kind of like, you know, right wing sort of parties and views and government since. But yeah, I thought that was one of the strengths of India was that there was no national religion.

29:35And in fact, the symbol on the India-Pakistan border is a combination of all the other religious symbols, which makes a statement in and of itself. So at that time, Hindus and Sikhs, non-Muslims, I suppose, who found themselves in those areas of east and west Pakistan had to move to what then became India. And Muslims went in the opposite direction. So if you were quote unquote on the wrong side of the border to be part of the majority religious affiliation, you were not forced to or you were forced to move or you just thought I better prudentially move otherwise it's not going to be good? You weren't forced legally.

30:19What were they sort of rampaging people say? Yeah. There was some sense of a very heightened atmosphere of incipient violence. And, you know, the two sort of wagon trails going in opposite directions from India to Pakistan were sometimes only yards apart. And so the violence erupted. Then trains that were going from one direction to the other. People were massacred on the trains. I mean, it was kind of it was a million people to a lot of people. There's an extraordinary bit in your India documentary series. When did that go out, by the way? 2007 or 8. Yeah. Yeah. In the second episode where you go back to find your sort of old homestead or rather your father's, which is now in Pakistan.

31:06And you arrive at the temple at Amritsar, which is a Sikh temple. And you meet a man who tells you. Do you remember? I do. An amazing story. Yeah. It was horrific. Yeah. It was, it's one of the only occasions I think I've interviewed somebody and inadvertently discovered my hands over my mouth. I didn't realize it until I started to speak. But he was, yeah, he was a Sikh kid in a village in what was Pakistan. And his father had been head man of this village. And they were aware that there was a baying bloodlust mob that was surrounding the village that they said, they're just going to kill us.

31:47They're going to kill all of us. So they made the decision that they would fight to the death, but to stop the women from falling into their hands. Being converted to Islam. Yet or worse, it was that they would kill their own women. And they had this discussion and it was the head man's daughter, the guy I was interviewing, his sister, who proffered her head first, which was duly removed. I mean it was just I'd never heard anything like that certainly not firsthand and I kind of said what happened then and he said well they when they saw that they kind of backed off effect the mob backed off they kind of went okay this isn't going to end well for us and so they backed off at that point you know I don't know I've never been in a situation where I can't see any way out and I don't know what happens to your head at that point so you know whether that was a pragmatic move whether it was a practical move.

32:47What it was was a story about sacrifice at its most extreme level. And so, yeah, there were many instances of that kind of horrific, almost ritualistic approach to death. I think you find that the more east you go, actually. I think there's a very Western view of killing and death and all that sort of stuff, which is not as ritualistic. And so, So I think incrementally as you go further east, we can read about things or hear about things that we think is kind of savage and brutal, which it is. But it's within a different cultural kind of context. It makes sense to them. You know, martyrdom, for instance, is not something that, you know, is a concept in the West that we kind of have grown up.

33:36Not anymore, although it's foundational to the Church of England, really. but it all happened in the late 16th century with people being burned by Mary I and Fox's Book of Martyrs was a big part of it. This is the part where I quote Nietzsche who said, well, this isn't very apposite but he said a good war will make any cause sacred and the idea that once blood is spilt any belief system becomes almost consecrated by that example on that sort of sense of the stakes being raised. Do you know, that reminds me of a quote by Chaplin in a film called Monsieur Verdoux. It was one of his kind of talkies, so it was after The Great Dictator.

34:21And he played a serial killer in Paris. Chaplin? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it's kind of, it's a really interesting film. And so he basically murders widows for their money, befriends them and then kills them and takes the money. and sorry if it's a spoiler to anyone but any he gets caught and in the end he says look i did this to support my family because the you know a priest or something says to him you've got a wife and kids and when you're thinking about them and he said that's exactly why i've done this i've done this purposefully you know these were widows they were approaching the end of their lives they had no other family i was very careful and so these three or four women i killed them for the money so I could support my family and kids.

35:06And he says at one point, you know, in war, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are killed, you know. And Chaplin's line is, he said, numbers sanctify. You know, which was that, yeah, somebody who kills three or four people is a monster, which obviously they are. But once you get into huge numbers, then it's sanctified in some way. It's a cause, you know. So your father was one of those displaced and he went to Delhi or New Delhi? He went to Delhi or New Delhi. It's the same thing. Well, the new bit is just, it's newer. It's more recent. They're all part of the same city. It's the same city.

35:46Yeah, yeah. New Delhi, I think, became... It's not like York and New York. It's very different. I'm trying to think of other places now which have got new in front of it. New York, New Delhi. New Malden? New Malden. Is that near Maldon? I mean, it has to be, doesn't it? I've been to New Maldon. Have I been to Maldon? I don't. Most of the time it's in America, like New York, New Orleans. Yeah. But New Maldon is not southwest of London. It is, yeah. So that can't be, that's not part of the New World. Is it New Maldon? It's a strange concept. I mean, maybe they just built it over Maldon. It's part of the colonial project.

36:28Maybe they were trying to tell the king, like, we've made huge inroads. we've now established new malden and then just pretended it was like in america um so basically your dad having been moved or you know moved himself to to delhi and then the in sense he'd already his ancestral his sort of centuries old yeah the continuity they had as a family the lineage had been severed and so now having been a stranger in delhi he was then a stranger in in west london i mean they were refugees in in delhi so they lived in refugee encampments and stuff like that but you're absolutely right it's no surprise to me that most of the people who came to britain or canada or the u.s in the 60s and the 70s were part of that group that had been displaced whether it was on the bangladeshi side or whether it was on the panjabi side or gujarat underneath is that these people who'd been displaced said that was a much bigger displacement for them was as you say you know they had you know centuries of kind of connection to that land and you your mum came over a bit later a few years later yeah and then you grew up with this sort of foot in both worlds and when i read about you going back and forth you sort of would do your summer holidays back in india right to reconnect you to the mother yeah it would be well it'd be once every kind of five or six years oh it wouldn't be that often no because the tickets were expensive and so we what we didn't have were regular holidays here so uh across the summer my dad would be working uh my mom then started work as well and it would take my dad four or five years to save up the money for us all to be able to go so my summers were really stuck in a room in in hounds like above the laundrette really yeah which was okay i mean you you know you accept the reality that's given to you not even like i don't know like caravanning or b &b no we never understood caravanning it was kind of like i mean there was a line on in the kamars when we were interviewing someone once about somebody who you know was outdoorsy and uh went camping and we said look you know we why do you live in a tent for three weeks i mean we moved here to get away from that kind of lifestyle and this idea of putting a small box room on wheels and then driving around in that what's that about um no we had uh i remember as a kid we went to wales for four days where it constantly rained and we had an old estate car that wouldn't go up hills so we had to get out to lighten the load so it could go up and then we'd be on top of this hill and my dad would be going and this is lake bala and we couldn't see a thing it was just and so my experience of wales was just, it was mist and rain and, you know, land of intrigue because I hadn't seen anything.

39:21So we did that and we went to the Lake District once for three days. In hindsight, was it kind of fun or? It was okay. It was kind of, as I said, as a kid, you just accept the reality. Do you have siblings? I have a younger sister, yeah. So it would be the four of you? It would be the four of us. And I think four of us and somebody visiting from India. So that would be the treat for them. Right, so it was more for them in a way. It was more for them, yeah. Otherwise, my dad would just be at the Nestle factory doing overtime, which I didn't mind at all because, I mean, I've always been very comfortable with my own company.

39:53But that was a time to read and watch things. And it was all that kind of thing. What were you watching? Gosh, at that time, the things that we watched. You were born in 63? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm seven years younger. But still, it wasn't radically similar vintage. Yeah. You were probably watching a lot of Open University, were you? I mean, Open University... Because that was the only thing that was on a lot of the time. It was quite intriguing, Open University. I couldn't watch it for long, but it was that weird thing where it was some bearded bloke with patches on his elbows. Yeah, and huge flares in front of a blackboard.

40:27In front of a blackboard, yeah, talking about subatomic particles. For younger listeners, we should explain that there used to be just... Well, I remember only three channels. That's right. And there was no internet. No. Maybe I don't have to say that, but I think it's worth reminding people. So instead of 10 million YouTube channels, not to mention sundry streamers and cable, you had three things that you could watch on TV. And a lot of the time, none of them were showing anything. So it would be a test card of a girl playing noughts and crosses on a blackboard with a doll. Yeah. Remember that?

41:04Yeah. And you would put that on. It was a clown. With a clown, you're right. Even that was better than nothing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they even had, which I very vaguely remember, a potter's wheel. It was just a potter's wheel, somebody sort of, you know, throwing... Throwing pots. Throwing pots. That was on a loop? Yeah, they never finished the pot. I mean, it was like, this was kind of like going to be the most extraordinary pot of time. And you kind of then look at kind of, you know, Chinese pots from the Ming Dynasty and you go, they made thousands of them. How long did it take them? Exactly.

41:36So do you remember the moon landing? because you would have been what six or seven years old yeah I kind of do in that I was woken up to watch these grainy images I had no idea what was going on but my mum woke me up because there was this moment in history I remember looking at it and thinking it's not as good as Star Trek I mean it's kind of I mean you know I what's going on it's a it's black and white it's so boring it's yeah it's quite dull and you know and also you know subsequently you kind of go well that extraordinary quote, you know, the short step for man. One small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.

42:16I mean, that's an extraordinary quote. It's a fantastic quote. He had it written beforehand. Had he? Do you think he'd been practicing it? Yeah, he had it written down and then he bungled it. If you listen, he goes, that's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind. And he was supposed to say for a man. Oh, was it? Yeah, of course. That's the whole thing. For a man being me taking a step, one giant leap for mankind. But if you say that's one small step for man, you're contradicting yourself. One giant leap for mankind. Yeah, yeah. Now I've got just images of him looking at a mirror and going, one giant walk.

42:49No, don't say walk. I wonder if he got help. He probably got someone, a ghostwriter. He would have known, like, I better say something cool when I step onto the moon. As opposed to, here we are. This feels weird. This feels so weird. everything's slow I would have liked to have been in that room where they were workshopping different lines that would have been great wouldn't it music music music music music music music music

43:40Hi, I'm Louis Theroux, and you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. And now, back to my conversation with Sanjeev Bhaskar. How are you doing? How's your energy? Yes, it's good. Do you need anything? No, no, no. I mean, no, I still have some of my rider. Your rider. Yeah. I kind of like... It's your rider cup. Just to explain that, I kind of emailed you to kind of say, no one's discussed my rider and I'm going to list my rider now. Coffee. Coffee. And that was it. And so the first time I was on the Parkinson show, which was the big talk show to be on. Yeah. How many times were you on it? Three.

44:17God, boast much. Calm down. You asked me, what am I going to do? Make something up? I suppose I could have done. How many times have I been on it? Once. Nance. Ah, you see. I've imagined you on it. You were brilliant, by the way. Nance. You were brilliant. You were brilliant. In my imagination, you were fantastic on it. So the first time I was on, they said to me, what about your rider? And I said, my what? And they said, rider. And I said, what is it? I have no idea. I thought they were talking horses or bikes or something. And I said, I don't know what that is. And they said, what would you like in your room beforehand?

44:50And I said, well, what have other people asked for? And this is reportage here. This is just what I was told. So they said that Paul McCartney had asked for organic fruit. That made sense. they said Michael Crawford had asked for warm sliced chicken breast. J-Lo had asked for the whole room to be white. Stop it. White room, white couch. And Mariah Carey. You can't put that on a rider. You can put anything you want on a rider. I mean, the whole blue M &M's thing started from some rock band. That's right. Famously. Well, rock bands used to increase their cachet by making outrageous, unfulfillable demands.

45:30So, yeah, you can do that sort of stuff, apparently. And Mariah Carey had asked for puppies and kittens to stroke. Come on. This is what I was told. You're not making that up? No, this is what I was told. And at the end of it, she said, I said, you're kidding. And she went, no, no, that's what people have asked for. And she said, what would you like? And I said, some coffee will be nice. And that's how down to earth you are. I couldn't think of anything more ludicrous. I mean, I couldn't even say a jet ski or something like that. That might have been interesting. Is that legally actionable, do you think?

46:02Mariah Carey... It may not be true. It may not be true. That's all we need to say. I mean, you know, that's what I was told, but it may not be true. I don't think it's libelous. It might be. Is it one? Why is it? I don't understand how it would be libelous. If you said to torture, she wanted puppies and kittens to torture before she went on the show. I mean, that... That would be libelous. Yeah, because there's an inbuilt character thing there. Do you remember in the 70s, there used to be these rumours that went round where you said such and such a pop star demanded, not as a rider, just as recreation, a number of baby chicks because he wanted to stamp on them.

46:38Do you remember that story? I don't remember that one specifically. Do you remember the one about such and such a pop star collapsed on the way to a gig and had his stomach pumped and they found the semen of 20 different men? I do remember that one. And I remember who it was said about. More than one person. well 20 the semen but there were two pop stars one was RS and one was MA yeah the second one was the one that I I recall I like the vision that it conjures of the doctors saying good god this looks like semen have it tested to see how many different men it is like as though they'd go to the trouble but not even tested it may be somebody with that instinctive thing that looks like semen I'm saying it's 20.

47:2720. 20. But I'd like confirmation. You want the... Take it to the lab. It's the Jaws moment. Yeah. How many men's semen do you think that is? 20. 25. 25. Going to need a bigger vial. Yeah. There was one other one which was, oh, such and such a pop star would pass around a mug and have everyone spit in it. Oh, yeah. I do recall this. So that he could drink it. Yeah, I do recall that one. And that was on his rider.

48:00I demand a mug with the semen of 20 men and another mug with the spit and sputum of 20 other men. But they can't be the same men. We've very much, we've lowered the tone. I wonder, one of the things that's striking about your story is, well, not just that you came to fame relatively late, but there was also this sort of previous life in which you worked, having gone to college and studied marketing. Business and marketing. done a bit of drama which you then sort of that fell by the wayside not having done much drama at school or any i think none you know the a levels i did pure and applied maths physics and economics were not the natural ones for me to do and so that was about trying to please my parents trying to sort of fit in you know with parents society what other people were doing there was no one around me that kind of really was interested in films and music and creativity and it was only when I met Nitin Sawni that I found a kindred spirit.

48:57Nitin Sawni, the celebrated and much-garlanded and brilliant musician and composer. I mean, he's a phenomenon in terms of he's, you know, one of the few geniuses I've ever met. And yeah, we kind of, I mean, we were, funny enough, I saw him last night for dinner and we were talking about it with that. But we kind of both talked about the fact that there was nobody that we could see in the public eye that reflected our experience of being British and of Asian heritage, South Asian heritage. And so we said, why don't we do something? And why don't we mix comedy and music? And so that's been riven through everything I've done.

49:35So whether it was sketches on Goodness Gracious Me or Kumar's or anything else I've come up with, it's preconceptions I'm playing with. And that was born out of that partnership with Nitin Sorni because it was, well, there are going to be preconceptions about two South Asian blokes on stage. How do we mess with that? So we would do sketches, but then he would suddenly play a flamenco piece. And then I'd do some impressions and then we'd sing Valare in Italian. And so in a way, it was a challenge to the audience to kind of go, you guess what's coming next. and so that really if I hadn't met him I don't think it would have remained this pipe dream it all seemed so distant if you hadn't met Nitin you think you might never have gone on I don't think filled your creative ambition I don't think so I don't think I would have had the confidence I would have always had the interest and the passion but uh never have had the confidence so a bit like your well whether it was confidence or circumstances but you've spoken about your dad having creative ambitions wanting to be a film director yeah You're never having the opportunity to do that.

50:40Yeah. You know, he knew what it felt like to close the lid shut on a passion. And so I think he didn't want that for his son. So I didn't know that he was interested and had pursued it to some degree until I was in my 40s. And so it's one of the things that I'm, of the many things I'm grateful for in terms of the relationship with my dad was that his first 30 years were incredibly traumatic for him. And his next 30 years were just about working and providing. And so I'm really grateful that he had 30 years where he saw the fruits of that, you know, and he was happy and, you know, saw me do well.

51:20And, you know, was he very proud of you? Yeah, I think he was. Yeah. Towards the end. It wasn't, you know, the first 30 years. Oh, really? Because one of the things was also, I heard you say, well, his sense of unrealized artistic ambitions maybe made him less tolerant, right, of your artistic bent, right? And I was thinking, well, it could just as easily be the other way around where he thought, don't make the mistake I made, son. Pursue your dream. You know, don't get locked up in a preconception about, you know, needing to be a professional. I mean, I think that's perfectly valid, I think. But also, you know, going back to what a migrant mentality is, is that you kind of go, I don't fit in.

52:05I want my kids to fit in. I want to be able to see that my kids are an integral part of this society more than I can be. And that becomes paramount. And so that then is about safety. And so whether it's about those kind of jobs, which you think are essential to society, being a doctor or being a lawyer or something like that, an engineer or something that's vital and important, you think that will be the shorthand for your kid being settled and viable, financially viable, certainly. And then things will build from that. There's stability that comes from that. The problem is now in the modern world, there is no stability to any of those kind of jobs.

52:45And to me, the journey is everything. So, you know, everything else are stepping stones, you know, they're going to go on to something else in some shape, way or form. And so then it becomes about, do you control your narrative? So for me, it was about getting confident enough to go, I'm going to start writing my story no matter what. And I think my dad at that point then also realized that I was writing a story that he had some familiarity with. So basically you had a bit of success at university, but not so much that you thought, this is it, this is what I'm doing. It didn't feel as though the scales fell from your eyes and you thought, I was born to do this and I can never look back.

53:24No, I mean, I loved it. And this is what we were talking about last night, Nitton and I, that we would spend maybe a month coming up with material and then we'd do one show and that was it. And that was it. Yeah, and then we just wouldn't do anything else for another year. I mean, it was kind of, it really was our enjoyment and the reactions were great, but it wasn't a commercial environment. Where were you at university? It was then Hatfield Polytechnic, University of Hertfordshire now. Right. But if you had been at the, you know, the cliche is that, you know, Oxford or is it Cambridge, the Cambridge Footlights, and then you meet your Emma Thompson and your Stephen Fry, and then you're part of this little talented group that goes on and makes movies.

54:06but I suppose it was a little different. The agents from London weren't trekking up to talent spot, the next Peter's Friends. Not in Hatfield. But also the Footlights at Cambridge had a history, so you could go back and you could look at Peter Cook and you could look at John Cleese and people like that at that time. So there was a history to that, so there was a well-worn path. But no, we were just two people who were studying different things who had a friendship who did this stuff. And watching TV growing up and then later, you know, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, surprise, surprise, some of the content was, well, slightly racist, right?

54:49That actually on shows like Ain't Half Hot Mum. Yeah. Do you remember that one? I do, yeah. It's interesting you bring that one up because I've always defended it. We used to watch it in our house. And, you know, I even hesitated when I used the word racist because that's a strong term. It is. They didn't set out to say, like, let's make a program that's really racist. Notwithstanding that, it had a guy who was, I guess, browned up. An actor was playing... Michael Bates. Michael Bates played the character... Ranji Ram. You got it right. Yeah. I've always defended that program, actually, because I think...

55:22Talk about that. I mean, I get the browning up thing, and I understand you wouldn't do that now. But you see, my kind of litmus test for shows that were racist on TV were how it impacted on me. And the impact on me was illustrated by what names I got called in the playground the next day. So shows that were big here, like Till Deathless Do Part, which in America, I think, was it All in the Family? Oh, All in the Family. Yeah, you're right. In America, it was All in the Family, and it was Archie Bunker. Yeah. And so after those shows, you know... Which was lauded as a kind of the time, oh, we're making fun of the bigoted attitudes of the suburban man.

56:08That's right. And he was sort of racist, but it was framed as, we're laughing at how small-minded he is, and he had a more progressive son, right? And in fact, everyone around him was more progressive. Yeah. His wife was. But the devil had the best lines. Yeah. And so those are the shows the next day that I got called names on the way to school or in the playground. I remember saying to someone once about the racism stuff I got at school. And they said, well, kids can be cruel. And I said, I'm not talking about the kids. I'm talking about the teachers. And so, yeah, I got called names and all the rest of it from adults.

56:44I forget about kids. Kids you could deal with. But it ain't our hot mum, which to explain the premise of the show. Thank you. was a if nothing else comes of this episode if it gives a second life shouldn't okay the irony is overreaching overreaching it was kind of funny wasn't it was I want to say it was written by Seals and Croft but they were Perry and Croft Seals and Croft were an R &B duo I mean maybe they moon moonlit they moonlighted writing sitcoms in the 70s Perry and Croft who also did Are You Being Served and a few others and dad's army and dad's army so all of their stuff really was about britain and class yeah and so was uh it ain't our fault mum and they said they had actually they had perry and croft had also been in the theatrical troupe on the eastern front do i mean the eastern front on the asian front in the second world war they had real experience and so that was the sitcom was based on that yeah the idea of it was the last stages of the second world war and there's these people basically avoiding active duty by being by putting on shows for the troops right which is a kind of a brilliant premise it's a great premise but uh you know their immediate superior uh is a sergeant major who absolutely believes in war and fighting and winsor davis winsor davis lovely boys lovely boys he's welsh welsh but it was a bad class because the dimmest people were the people who were right at the top were the kind of colonel and the major who were overall in charge and they had no idea what was going on and the smartest person in the show was Ranji Ram yeah so you know the day after that was shown I never got called any racist names because the power lay with you know the South Asian characters even though one was browned up but he spoke fluent Urdu did he yeah you know we watched it as a family and it was no offense taken by my parents because they kind of understood the um archetype they understood that type of wily sort of indian character who is kind of really controlling everything he's he's not in charge but he is and they wouldn't have minded too much that um he was played by a white character no because i think because i think the performance was great and so it's same as peter sellers i mean one of the films that i thought I would die laughing at when I was 11 was The Party and in it Peter Sellers plays an Indian actor so he's browned up who gets invited by mistake to a kind of big Hollywood party and it's mostly mime actually but I was 11 directed by Blake Edwards Blake Edwards playing Harundu V.

59:30Bakshi you knew it it's quite funny isn't it should I say that no I think I think both of those are great comedy performances And you've got to understand that I think at that time, across the 60s and the 70s, there was no sort of South Asian representation on TV. So even someone browning up for us was kind of a step closer to seeing ourselves reflected. And the thing with Michael Bates in It Ain't Our Valk Mom or Peter Sellers in the two films where he played an Indian character was that we thought with both of those that the target wasn't us, wasn't kind of Indians. We didn't think that was the target.

1:00:15You know, he played a character who was ridiculous and silly, but we never felt it was personal. whereas there was a very famous um very short-lived sitcom in britain uh called curry and chips uh with spike milligan dressed up and spike milligan could also speak the language really because he was uh again the amount of time he spent in india but the characterization was that his accent was the joke really whereas with peter sellers the accent wasn't the joke and And similarly with Michael Bates, the accent wasn't the joke. You had him there and you had two real Indian actors with genuine accents.

1:00:59And those were the heroes of the story. So no one was going to mock us, you know, me as a kid for being the hero in a story. But if you were the target of the story, then of course, you know, then it was fair game. And I think there's a difference. There always has been a difference between punching up and punching down. Did you ever have the experience, you know, I was reminded of Dave Chappelle and him, he did a lot of racially charged humor on his Comedy Central show. And then he ended up walking away from the show because he felt things he was saying from a place of lived experience, and I guess, affection and familiarity about, you know, the black community and the black experience in America were being received slightly differently.

1:01:41and he didn't like the way, I guess, a white guy is quoted as saying like there was a white person laughing in a way he felt uncomfortable with. And I'm wondering whether there were jokes on Goodness Gracious Me that, you know, quite rightly a white comedian or actor wouldn't have been comfortable them doing. But did it ever feel to you like it was being received if people were sort of doing the skit and they didn't have Asian heritage, let's say, was there ever a time when you felt like, oh, actually, I feel like this is in danger of getting out of control. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, it never felt like that.

1:02:16And I think it was primarily because I never felt that we were the targets. We were involved. And so, you know, if they're repeating stuff. It would have felt friendly. Yeah. And also, you know, language-wise, we were fairly clean. You know, so it wasn't that any of that language was going to be used against anyone that could be, you know, quoted back to us. Some of the catchphrases were, what was it? Chuddies? Kiss my chuddies. Kiss my chuddies. Chuddies are underpants. So a white guy saying kiss my chuddies in an accent would be okay. Yeah. In fact, the first time I realized that the show had crossed over, I was walking along Upper Street in Islington in North London.

1:02:58And it was quite a hot day. And I heard someone say, Oi! in a slightly kind of like boysy, aggressive way. And I thought, outside a pub. And I thought, I'll just keep walking. And then he went, oi, goodness gracious me, bloke. And so I turned around and saw him with two kind of skinheads who were sitting with him. So I walked back and he said, Chuddies. I said, yeah, he said, Thunderpants, isn't it? And I said, yes, it is. And he went, I told you, I told you to these guys. And I thought, wow, the show's crossed over it's crossed over to a mainstream audience because i wouldn't have thought they would have been the people who'd get it or watch it so um no it didn't it didn't it's kind of you know most people that i've met have been lucky enough to meet bump into say something they're generally quite nice and so and so therefore you know if they're repeating something even with a hint of an accent i'm not thinking oh you're mocking me or you're mocking south Asians or you're mocking immigrants.

1:04:01I kind of go, well, that's a quote from a show I've done. So that's fine. When you had Ronnie Corbett on the Kumars, I thought he was quite brilliant. He was great. Yeah. And you asked him if he'd do an Indian accent, right? Do you remember that? Gosh, I don't remember that, but yeah, very likely we did. Well, because he'd probably done it as part of the two Ronnie's sketches at some point. And I thought, this is interesting. I wonder what the correct form is for him. And he said, you're very kind but I'd feel self-conscious doing it in front of such experts and so he declined We asked that with a couple of people actually Minnie Driver, we asked her to do an Indian accent Really?

1:04:40And did she do one? She had a go and she said I sound like I'm from Glamorgan in Wales So that was great, she was game Tom Jones, we said you sound the Welsh accent is very similar to the Indian accent you sound just like Uncle Davinda who runs a shop could you say oi only two school kids at a time and did he do it he did yeah and we said yeah that sounded just like Uncle Devinder so we've had fun with it I mean yeah you know that's lovely that you can dispel so I wondered whether well does it get awkward if he does the if he does an accent but actually you would have been very understanding that he's in a safe space and it's coming from a place of affection and mutuality yeah I just never thought you know when he had done the accent on two Ronnie sketches.

1:05:26I never thought, oh, this is him being nasty about, you know, the Asian community or anything like that, you know. And as I said, you know, it's different times. It's kind of like at that time, that was acceptable. Now it isn't. It doesn't mean that that is now unacceptable. It's a thing that now, it strikes me so weird that, you know, in so many discussions where, you know, non-binary becomes a topic that arguments are so binary. I mean, it's either this or that. And the thing that the casualty is context. You go, there's no context. People don't have time for context. They'll hear a word or a phrase or an opinion and they'll go, well, that's it.

1:06:07No, I don't need to hear anymore. While we're in sort of culture wars territory, I mean, I'm not inviting you to get yourself into hot water. I think I once heard that you were friendly with Lawrence Fox. Is that? I was, yeah. I mean, I did an episode of Lewis that he was a regular in. And I'd worked with his dad, James Fox, who's absolutely lovely. I did a film that he was in. So I kind of, you know, got on with, you know, the Foxes. So I was in touch with him. I mean, yeah, I'll let you ask the question. Well, I suppose if you felt, do you feel like you can shed any light on what's going on with him?

1:06:51No, not really. I mean, because I, you know, I didn't know him very well. I always had, you know, perfectly, he was perfectly nice to me and civil and friendly. And so a lot of his views now, I don't really understand where they've come from. And, you know, I don't agree with many of them. You know, I'd like to believe, and this may be just me being optimistic that he's not fundamentally a racist person. But I think that he got a lot of love from the right wing of society. And that's where he felt loved and accepted. And being loved and accepted is fundamental to us being able to kind of get up and do another day.

1:07:34But, you know, there is a kind of an entrenchment of views that he has that I don't fully understand. So I think he's coming from a place of the anti-racists are the real racists, right? And that his evidence base seems to be, to my mind, quite narrow. So he's characterizing an area of progressive ideology as all-encompassing and completely suffocating and saying that we're sort of under the jackboot of this ultra-woke agenda. And so he recently, I think he's in litigation at the moment, people accused him of being racist and he called them in turn pedophiles and now they're in court yeah i mean i think you know again it's this libertarian view of kind of you know free speech and the when i kind of read about you know libertarians or a particular viewpoint particularly comes to free speech it tends to be very very personal tends to be i should be allowed to say whatever i want and if you then you know call someone this is i guess what his court case is about is that you know he's he's saying well you know you you call me racist and that is a slur and even wherever if i call you a pedophile then that's obviously a joke because you're not really and you kind of go well wait a minute where's where's the free speech libertarianism then where does where does that fall you know either yes everyone can say what they want but it's not that.

1:09:01It's generally, you know, I want to be able to say what I want and not get into trouble for it. And that's the thing that it doesn't, it doesn't work for me.

1:09:36Hi, me again, Louis Theroux. Just to remind you, you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. And now, back to my conversation with Sanjeev Bhaskar.

1:09:48Okay, I know time's dribbling on. Not dribbling, gushing, coursing. Oh, man, I want to circle back. We're going to have a big finale in a minute. but while we're just ticking things off, you were in a Woody Allen film. I was, yeah, I was. It was called Scoop. It was shot in London. Did you have lines? I did have lines. I was in two and a half scenes, two of which got cut. So I'm now in the film just saying, well, we're here to play poker, so let's play. That's it. But I had many more lines. I had a couple of scenes with Hugh Jackman, who, you know, the value of that job was that, I became friends with Hugh and so I've remained friends with Hugh.

1:10:31Right. So that was lovely. You weren't friendly with Woody? No, I was kind of, I mean, I was, Woody Allen's comedy writing was a huge influence. So particularly those films in the 70s and early 80s. There's a kind of banner period, which I think the films are extraordinary. But no, I just met him and that was it. There's two people I've met. Did he give you much direction? Very little, actually. He would say, Dan Chief, I love what you're doing with the part. I can't do it. I can't do it. Yeah, but people would instantly know who you're doing. That's the thing, isn't it? It's kind of, it's not prizes to be won.

1:11:06My interior's got bananas. That's a Simpsons gag. It's a very good one. So you were in it and then he didn't give you much direction. No, he doesn't. What year was it? Oh, gosh. This would be, it was post-command. so not post-Kumars but during Kumars so 2004 had he seen Kumars no Hugh had and so that was the thing that really threw me um but when I got to the set I saw Hugh Jackman who's wonderful who's just a lovely guy and so handsome and and he looked at me and he said Sanji but I said whoa how do you know and he said Kumars right he said I used to watch it in Australia and I was kind of like oh my god and so that's a nice feeling so he seems like a nice man really lovely yeah so yeah you know it was it was valuable for that you know this that whole thing about worth and value is something that i've kind of learned as the career has kind of dribbled on since you've introduced the word now it seems that um which is that it i mean it's a very lucky dribble but um is that whole thing about you know meeting people having experiences is where the real value of life is and you know so much of society tells you ascribes a number to it whether it's how much you earn whether what your house is worth league tables so it's that idea of seeing worth and value beyond numbers that kind of really draws me to either projects or experiences or whatever it's kind of it's that because that's what sustains me that's what's interesting to me woody allen calls you tomorrow and says i'd like you to play the lead in my new movie yeah i'd say can i see a script you read the script you you think it's a return to form it's visionary and brilliant this is about you know cancelled woody allen isn't it is it sneaky bastard um it's a tricky one it's a really tricky one i mean it's because you know it to hold a viewpoint on this it kind of kills you either way feel free to dodge i think you're mid-dodge i am mid-dodge i am mid-dodge i'm mid-dodge because i don't really know i don't really know and that's that's the difficulty it's lucky that your scenes were cut in a way because at least you weren't really faced with the dilemma of, well, a lot of people, Timothee Chalamet, he said he wished he'd never done a film with Woody Allen, you know, these other actors.

1:13:44But you were never, I suspect your phone wasn't ringing off the hook with people saying like, do you stand by your crucial role in Scoop or not? I wish I'd never worked with Woody Allen. I'm disgusted and I'll be returning my fee. No, you can because you know what you know at the time. And so... But we're talking about now. You feel free to dodge. Yeah, but... Would you? Would you? Would you? I'm still going to dodge, I think. Yeah, dodge away. I am going to dodge. Because, you know, with someone like Harvey Weinstein... Did you do a Harvey film? No, I had a deal with Miramax. So I did meet him.

1:14:20No, you didn't. I did, yeah. What kind of deal? It was a writing deal. I had a three-picture deal with Miramax. Stop it. To write. That's a scoop. No pun intended. There's our clickbait. Yeah, I met him once or twice.

1:14:36He wasn't the most pleasant person to me, I have to say. Woody Allen was not unpleasant to me, but he was very in his kind of directing mode. And so there was very little chit-chat and stuff like that. For Harvey, you got your deal. Yeah. He'd seen some of the sketches from Goodness Gracious Me, and the ones that he liked happened to be some of the ones that I'd written. And so on the basis of that, he said, you know, give this guy a three picture deal. Yeah. And so... I like the cut of this guy's jib. I don't know what he sounds like, but I'm more comfortable with... Yeah, that kind of voice.

1:15:12I think, let's just say that. He's phenomenal. Yeah. I got a... You're hilarious. You're hilarious. And then you show... This is awful. This is reasonable. This guy can't write worth for shit. It's kind of like a one-man Statler Waldorf. This sketch is wonderful. This made me laugh. Well, some of it made me laugh. Well, the first line was funny. It's terrible. Funny in a strange kind of way. The rest of it was awful. In fact, the title is awful. This is shit. This piece of shit. I love it. You're fired. So how much did you deliver on the deal? I didn't. It was a very kind of, it was a very instructive and illustrative experience.

1:15:52It sounds like Barton Fink. In my head, that's where I was going with it. Where they flew you out. Give this guy a three-picture deal. I walked in and they said, oh, this is Sanju. He's got the, you're hilarious. Really? Write me some funny stuff. And then that was it. And then you handed nothing in? They sent me a script and said about rewriting it. And I kind of gave my ideas for that. And there was a discussion whereby someone actually said, yeah, the problem with this is there's just too many Indian characters in it. And I said, what? Too many Indian characters? They went, yeah. And I said, why have you brought?

1:16:28I don't know why I've got a deal. It's kind of like. So you kind of dodged two bullets Next you'll be saying You nearly got a pilot away with Russell Brand One bullet, it's the magic bullet theory It's the same bullet It skipped around Woody Allen Went past Harvey Weinstein And then came out Came through Russell Brand's legs That's right Oh my god We're in a hot, hot But you know, I appreciate you going down the road You still haven't answered the Woody Allen question I have, I have answered it I'm agnostic I don't know I genuinely you would take the role what you said was if the script was right you would take you would take I mean you know but then you'd make that decision then you know I think we've dribbled brilliantly I mean good luck with the edit that's all I can say what Millie does thank you so much for coming in Sanjeev no thank you it's been wonderful and thank you for being generous with your time I mean I've got more but let's stop there come on stop it stop it and scene thank you so much

1:17:47okay so there you are hope you enjoyed that a little trip down memory lane for you boomers out there the world of three tv channels test cards cinema adverts for restaurants around the corner and and then for the younger folk perhaps an education on uh what a deprived upbringing we older folk had we suffered so that you could enjoy a million channels on youtube um check out those sketches many of which are on iPlayer and easily findable there and on youtube you could easily find uh the Kumars at number 42 as well I think it's on Britbox and they get guests of absolutely the highest caliber. Phil Collins, you don't see him on much, do you?

1:18:31And there he is looking tanned and relaxed and enjoying the high quality bands. Cliff Richard, Elvis Costello, David Hasselhoff, it would be quicker to tell you the people who haven't been on it, like me and the Queen. What else to say? Basically, what a pleasure to just enjoy enjoy chatting and you know and laughing about our comparable in some ways experiences of life in the public eye and out of it and and the sense that he's a warm person a person who's likes to see the good in people who's refreshingly can i say that indulgent of different times having different mores like his the takeaway from me was that it ain't half hot mum, which I think still isn't shown on TV because of the browning up, that for him, that was at the time, a kind of form of representation and felt that it was not aimed at Sanjeev and his family.

1:19:34So thank you to Sanjeev for coming on and giving so much of his time. If I can clarify and amplify a couple of things, if you've got time, if you need to go, go. There's nothing essential. We've covered most of the main points, but if you're still here, The Nietzsche quote, it's also translated as it is the good war that hallows any cause. So in a sense, it's not that you have to fight for a good cause. It's that in the act of fighting, you make the cause good in inverted commas. Like if you went to war for a podcast, if I declared war on a rival podcast and my producer died, suddenly like our podcast would have this sort of renewed sense of nobility and reverence because we'd be part of a tradition that was consecrated by the loss of our producer.

1:20:21Does that make sense? If we were going to declare war on a podcast, a rival podcast, it's interesting to wonder which one it might be. You'd probably choose the one you thought you could defeat most easily. Rory Stewart, is he tough? He walked across Iraq, didn't he, or something. He's pretty wiry. And then he'd have backup because Campbell would be there, and he's quite big and he runs marathons. You'd want to go for one of those comedy ones, off-menu, something like that. James A. Castor. He's a nice guy, but there's different rules in war. Regarding the semen in stomach rumour, it's worth saying it's been attached over the years to, it says here, hundreds of celebrities.

1:21:04That seems like an exaggeration, but definitely more than two. It's entirely untrue. I mentioned RS and MA. If you want to know who those people are, email me and I won't tell you. On Lawrence Fox, since recording took place, he lost his libel battle with the two Twitter users he called pedophiles. He'd been sued by Simon Blake, a former Stonewall trustee, and Crystal, a drag artist, over a dispute on Twitter in October 2020. They'd called him racist And they were not found guilty of libel for that I mean, the details are quite colourful If you want to dig into them in your own time And finally, we spoke about Woody Allen and Russell Brand Both have repeatedly denied the allegations made against them Credits Produced by Millie Chu The assistant producer was Man Al-Yaziri The production manager was Francesca Bassett, and the executive producer was Aaron Fellows.

1:22:12The music in the series was by Miguel de Oliveira. This is a Mindhouse production for Spotify.