THERE was perhaps no cheerier and more heart-warming moment on the big screen this summer than when we witnessed the reveal of Sanjeev Bhaskhar and Meera Syal as Jack Malik’s (Himesh Patel) parents in the Richard Curtis scripted film, Yesterday. With Danny Boyle of Slumdog Millionaire fame directing and Patel the lead in a literally all-singing-all dancing big studio production, it was a reveal-to-cherish. And it seemed fitting that two figures from the pivotal BBC comedy sketch show series Goodness Gracious Me (GGM) were up there and together in roles which seemed to encapsulate their standing – as the first British Asian couple of entertainment.
Syal remains one of the most iconic figures to have emerged on the UK arts scene in recent decades. An actor and writer, with award-winning novels to her name, her range and versatility make her a continually popular choice.
This year, her main theatre stint has been in the Michael Frayn farce classic, Noises Off, and it’s a measure of both her talent and status that she can fit into the role of Dotty Otley so sublimely. It is also a sign of changing times – that at long last casting directors and the like are looking beyond colour and simply selecting the best for the job. (Dev Patel in The Personal History of David Copperfield is another recent example)
Noises Off, which triumphantly returned to the Lyric theatre in Hammersmith, where it first played almost 40 years ago, (it has toured the world a few times since) has been hailed as one of the funniest plays of all time.
The first part is actually a play within a play. In the second half, we see the characters as they are in ‘real life’ – vain, egotistical, randy, and emotionally unstable.
Set in a big country house that is up for sale, an estate agent and his female assistant wander in, hoping to get some privacy to conduct their intimate business, but that never really happens and the final act brings all these aspects together in a glorious ode to British amateur or provincial theatre and the usual prudish/sex obsessed dichotomy that inhabits many of those involved. You could probably imagine no finer example of British comic sensibilities and Syal and the cast were the subject of rave reviews.
Syal said she did not have to research the part of her character, who is an ageing former soap star. It was, she felt, “a love letter to the theatre” and in essence the comedy originated from a “dissonance between the hell that is going on in their personal lives and their public face”, she told the Evening Standard. The play ended its extended run in August at the Lyric and transferred to the West End (Garrick) in September and ends in January 2020.
Syal grew up in a mining village not far from Birmingham and much of her early life as the only brown girl in the village seeps into her first novel, Anita & Me (1996). It won the Betty Trask Award and since then she has gone on to write Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, published in 1999, and more recently, ‘The House of Hidden Mothers’ in 2015, the year she received a CBE.
She has a grown-up daughter from her first marriage to journalist Shekhar Bhatia and now a son in his early teens from her marriage to her co-star on GGM, Sanjeev Bhaskar.
This summer Bhaskar reached a particular milestone in his role as vice chancellor of the University of Sussex. After conferring more than 50,000 degrees in his 10 years, he received an honorary doctorate from the university itself – much to the delight of Meera and family who remarked: ‘Our son – the doctor’.
The presentation was something of a shock for Bhaskar – and many of his family present at the ceremony had to be snuk in so he didn’t suspect anything.
In the summer there was also the release of Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans.
Horrible Histories, the TV series, ran from 2009-2013 on the BBC children’s channel CBBC and was adapted from stories that author Terry Dreary put together highlighting episodes from history adapted for children to understand. They were marked by a particular brand of dark and blunt black humour.
Bhaskar said he was first drawn to the series by his young son, who was a fan, and later worked on episodes himself. He told the Metro newspaper: “I genuinely think it was probably one of the best and most consistently funny sketch shows I’ve seen in years.”
The film covers the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. Its underlying message is that folks should get along regardless of nationality or ethnicity – something Bhaskar strongly believes in. A casual perusal of his Twitter timeline reveals a liberal with a strong social conscience and a commitment to compassion, equality and fairness.
Bhaskar has carved a place for himself in the nation’s heart by playing DI Khan in the ITV crime procedural Unforgotten. In April this year he appeared at the BFI and Radio Times Television Festival along with co-star Nicola Young and series creator and writer Chris Lang to share anecdotes and stories from their three series. As the title implies, the two mature police officers investigate long forgotten crimes. Bhaskar said he never expected to be cast in the role, but has certainly made it his own, complete with the trademark rucksack he always carries.
Bhaskar was one of the so-called British Asian gang of four who broke through with GGM. The others were Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia.
He had finished a degree at the University of Hertfordshire and had a job in marketing with IBM when he was talent spotted by BBC producer Anil Gupta while performing the comedy sketch show, the Secret Asians, with his friend Nitin Sawhney.
