THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.178 - SANJEEV BHASKAR

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

Adam talks with British actor and comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and Becca Ptaszynski for additional editing.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRAMBLE BOOK PAPERBACK ARTWORK - SIGNED POSTERRELATED LINKSINDIA WITH SANJEEV BHASKAR - 2007 (BBC iPLAYER)GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME - THE COOPERS, PUB LUNCH SKETCH (YOUTUBE)UNFORGOTTEN SERIES 1 TRAILER - 2015 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here.

I'm standing on a track, Norfolk Farm track, if you want to know. What is it, May, mid-May? 2022. And I'm staring at my dog friend rosie half whip it half poodle all genius she's excited to be going out on a walk on what is a very beautiful springy slash summery day aren't you rose yeah are going to go or are we just going to stand here? Yeah, we can go, but I'm just going to give your small head a stroke, if you don't mind, if that's not too cheeky. All right, let's do it. So how are you doing, podcats?

Did I ask you that already? Exciting time for me because I received a gift from my wife, my wife, the other day. It was a bad cold. Not COVID, I'm glad to say. This is one of the old kinds where you can more or less carry on as normal, but you're just all bunged up and sad. Also, I've noticed that this one seems to be a hungry cold, and this cold really likes toast and marmalade. It's got to be the right kind of marmalade, though.

None of that sort of Cooper's grown-up marmalade. I like the silly marmalade. Excuse me. I'll tell you the other thing, though, is that I've got such a runny nose, I wrote a joke, that my kids are calling me snotify because I'm constantly streaming. streaming okay let me tell you about podcast number 178 which features a conversation with british actor comedian and writer sanjeev baskar some brief baskar facts for you sanjeev currently aged 58 was born and raised in the borough of Ealing, West London. He is married to fellow actor and comedian and writer Mira Sayal, with whom he starred in the hit late 90s radio and TV sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, and also hit comedy talk show The Kumars at number

42. That show originally ran for seven series on BBC Two in the first half of the 2000s. Sanjeev is of Punjabi heritage and in 2007 he explored his roots in a series of films for the BBC called India with Sanjeev Bhaskar and I speak, you can still see those on the iPlayer. There's a link in the description. One of Sanjeev's first more serious... That's what it says in my notes. One of Sanjeev's first more serious starring roles... Is that grammatically accurate?

Anyway, you know what I mean. Came in 2010 when he was cast as Dr Prem Sharma in The Indian Doctor. And in 2015, he starred alongside Nicola Walker as D.I. Sunny Khan in the first series of the ITV crime drama Unforgotten, created and written by Chris Lang and directed by Andy Wilson. created and written by Chris Lang and directed by Andy Wilson. Quoting from Wikipedia now, each series of Unforgotten deals with a new case, introducing seemingly unconnected characters who are gradually revealed to have some relationship with the victim.

As the murder mystery unfolds, the emotional ramifications of the crime on the lives of those affected are also explored. As I said to Sanjeev towards the end of our conversation, this was one of the big discoveries that my family made last year during lockdown three, having not previously been aware of Unforgotten. But we munched through all four series, thought it was excellent. The fifth series of the show is currently in production, due to air later this year.

This year also sees the arrival on Netflix of the fantasy series The Sandman, or just Sandman, according to Sanjeev. I don't know. It's an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's best-selling novel for DC Comics, in which Sanjeev plays Kane. My conversation with Sanjeev was recorded face-to-face a couple of months after the end of Lockdown 3 in June of last year, 2021, and it was the first of a few podcasts I ended up recording in hotel rooms around London. in hotel rooms around London.

Why did I do that? I don't know. I thought it might be a good neutral space rather than having to ask friends for favours and that kind of thing, just a bit more straightforward. But, as I said to Sanjeev and last week's guests, Lazy Susan, it does feel initially at least slightly creepy. But I'm glad to say myself and Sanjeev, who I had met briefly on a couple of occasions got beyond any creepiness quickly and we settled in for a good old meandering chat taking us through a wide range of subjects and conversational tones

full spectrum ramble i'll be back at the end to say goodbye. But right now, with Sanjeev Bhaskar, here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Bye. Oh, gosh. Hello. Hello. He's in the house.

I'm in the house and I'm not leaving. We are in my hotel room in a hotel off Trafalgar Square, London. I'm thinking about closing the window so we don't get drilling noise. How would you feel about that? This is, you know, I'm a guest and I'm at your place. I'm going to do that. And in one single leap... I care about this.

I'm going to turn off the fridge. He's going to turn off the fridge. This is getting a bit Silence of the Lambs-y. You have a drink. You have a drink. You have a drink from Costa Coffee, but I can also offer you Pepsi Max, Diet Coke, Foster's Lager,

Dash water, sparkling water infused with wonky peaches. Breakfast of kings, ladies and gentlemen. No, I'm fine, fine actually i brought my own because i didn't really know what was gonna happen here yeah quite wise um you are welcome to use the lavatory the lavatory oh thank you at any point it's just there right in the room how modern yeah so it's only a small room. It's a budget room. And I cleaned before you arrived,

aware that it is a little intimate to go into someone else's hotel room, especially if it's a sort of small, non-palatial one. Speak for yourself. But you know what I mean? You go in there and their stuff is there and the bed's not made and it feels like, oh, are we going out now? Well, you did make… It's the thing on a kind of early date which could, you know, kill a relationship, couldn't it? Yeah, I just took my clothes off.

Yes, exactly. So I sort of made the bed. And you have made the bed. I've removed as many hairs from the bathroom area as I could find. That's very considerate. Both mine and whoever else's. Was here before. Yeah.

Are you queasy about that though? If I had been more laissez-faire and you'd gone in the bathroom and there was some pubes lying around, would you think less of me? Would you think, oh, that's a shame. I wouldn't think less of you. I think it depends on how many and where they were were i mean if it was like how thick if it was like a poodle had just been shorn and it was all over the floor and my path to the laboratory but then you know when you're desperate for the loo you kind of have to accept the conditions that you're presented with, really. Sure.

Because you can't not go unless you're some sort of, you know, Zen control master. No, man, I definitely can't not go. I can't hold it in for any length of time. So, I mean, you know, if the conditions are that awful, as bad as, you know, worse than we can say. Tim Robbins crawling through the pipe from Shawawshank redemption exactly i mean that was freedom on the other side of that yeah i mean if he'd encountered a turd and turned back i got you know what i'll do the extra 20 years a turd he was swimming through a river of molten turds and he was gagging that was the thing that that really

made that scene good was he was gagging i'd love to see the version where he did turn back though would you would you have done it i don't know if i would because also i'd be thinking well i'll probably die you'll get so many diseases you know it's like now we're all wandering around in face masks in case we get covid or whatever else but um you know what about submerging yourself in human effluent for an hour or however long it took to crawl through that yeah i mean you're right but you know if i then apply it to you know being family person, would you do that for your kids? And I'd probably go, yeah, I don't know what I probably would. Yeah, man, you're a better dad than I am. I'm like, kids, look, I love you, but look at the size.

Look at the length of the tunnel. Kids, I just realized I loved you. I just realized that there are limits to love in any relationship. And it's a great life lesson for you. You've just come from an ADR session. I have, yes. For those not in the industry, what does ADR stand for? Well, there is some dispute about the letterage of this, but it's additional dialogue replacement or alternative dialogue replacement so it's when you finish a

film or a telly thing and the sound screwed up then you have to kind of repeat the words so they get it clearly and then they can mix it all up what are you adr-ing sky sitcom called hitmen okay uh melon sue ah yes And I went and did that. And I basically had to turn up and do a bunch of noises today. Okay. It was fight noises. So it was lots of... And are you leaping around in the studio and physically throwing yourself about to get the real noises?

I feel like an idiot, but yes. Also, they ask you to sure can we have a bit of movement in this actually i was wondering if you were doing adr on the sandman sandman uh but is it are you at that stage yet no i'm not um with sandman is it the salmon or just sandman sandman sandman yeah um yes it's like you have to say the muppet show you can't say it's the opposite of that isn't it it's kind of loses some sort of weight it's they're still filming it i'm sure kermit just called it muppet show or he probably called it what did he call it he probably just called it show yes exactly yeah i've done a couple of seasons on show and that's not a good impression

um so yeah they're still filming that right have you done your stuff yet i've done my stuff oh yeah was that fun yeah it was yeah it was great fun i've never been in it on anything you know the scale of that and then we shot in kent we did i did a day there and then a couple of days in kent on location which is then they're going to add cgi and things that fly and dreamy things so this is an adaptation of a comic slash graphic novel whatever you want to call it by neil gaiman i'm not a comic person so I'm not totally on top of this whole world, but I understand that it was a big deal. 1989 to 1996, this was originally published.

And this is the first adaptation. Is it movie adaptation or screen adaptation? Because this is for Netflix. I mean, I had no idea of just how deep and broad the appeal of this went and i mean i knew of it and i know neil a bit but in terms of how popular this particular publication was no idea at all first thing i saw when i googled it was sanjeev baskar is cane the first predator i thought oh yeah is that a good thing to be there's just a picture of your face smiling and then it says underneath the first predator

yeah but can you imagine if someone you know predates and someone just goes you third mate I mean you just kind of go if you're going to be a predator you may as well be the first yeah but the word predator in my mind is just inextricably linked from bad things that men do no good predators bad men i don't know tigers are predators aren't they big cats yeah exactly that's what it's all about maybe there's some kind of me too movement within the animal community about those predators it's like and they're all saying no come on this is just nature and they're like that's not good enough anymore yeah it used to be i mean not now yeah hey cubs i'm calling you out exactly yeah i'm scanning mentally is that okay that joke i'm not sure is it a joke i suppose

that would be the first question yeah is a question actually is do you remember so that would be the first question. Yeah. Is a question actually. Do you remember? So that's the question. Yeah. We kind of shared one program's credit once. Can you remember what that is? Oh, good question. I can't remember.

It was the big read. And you and Joe were the scientists that built oh yes and deep thought was voiced by uh stephen hawking right and did they actually get stephen hawking they actually got stephen hawking yeah apparently that stephen hawking had some sort of trademark thing on that particular voice box voice box yeah maybe we crossed paths on charity things like red nose day type things. Yeah. That's possible as well. I think Joe and I only ever got invited to do one of those. We did a thing with boy zone.

They had a cover of when the going gets tough, tough gets going by Billy ocean. We did the, the comic relief song for which we got to number one and i got to be on top of the pops whoa it just felt wrong what was the song like can you remember it it was it was spirit in the sky oh it was spirit in the sky gavin greenbaum gareth gates and the kamars was the cover who else was on top of the pops with you coldplay were on nice because i remember finding chris martin to apologize to him what did you do i just said i'm

sorry we're at number one you're a proper band and this is for charity though and i'm just really sorry he was very generous about it you should have just gone up to him and gone in your face chris martin you tall lunatic he's very tall isn't he he is very tall yeah i don't think people realize how tall he is he is absolutely giant how tall are you about five foot seven yes same here yeah there you go how's that going for you it's it's worked well so far i mean i thought it might be a hindrance to having a career at one stage but uh but also my son who's 15 is a good two and a half inches taller okay and the that is has been the most celebrated aspect of me having a son from the rest of the family it's height they will exchange height for i don't know a gift of some kind. It's kind of like, look, he can do Rubik's Cube.

Yeah, but look, it's only 5'1". You know, it's like, he can do it in three seconds. He's a world champion. 5'1". Or is that idiot over there? He's 5'10". 5'10". So your son is 15?

He's 15, yeah. Do you mind me asking how he's doing? How fatherhood is going? Yeah, it's kind of, you know it's cynicism and and monosyllabicism and that's a term but the saving grace is a sense of humor and it's one of the things i was saying to him not that long ago and i said you know like a sense of humor hang on to it I said it's it's instant and natural perspective and I said the one thing that we lose when we get scared or we get angry or any of those things is we lose perspective and I said comedy a sense of humor will give you that irony instantly gives you an alternate you're still looking at the same thing you're just looking at from another angle that amuses you and it just takes the edge off of that thing that was fearful or you know

terrifying or or angering or whatever it's hard though to hang on to a sense of humor when you're frightened and when you're rattled and are you good in those situations are you are you able to retain your sense of humor or do you get very serious i think you find your way back back to it quicker you know the thing is that if you're devoid of it you'll you'll never be able to get to it you know the reason that you know why talking is so important in terms of our mental health and all that sort of stuff is is that someone is giving you perspective it's the slightly kind of dangerous thing about social media, which is the echo chamber thing, is somebody actually just repeating back to you what you've said. And so you may feel kind of temporarily emboldened by it or reassured or whatever. But if it hasn't got perspective, then it's kind of useless because you were thinking that anyway.

So if you think the earth is flat and someone goes earth is flat you go all right earth is flat no one's going to question it it's kind of you need someone to go i don't think it is and i think that's with with everything i think that the best thing that you know my friends can do with me is to question me they'll do it nicely they'll do it in a kind way but that's where your perspective gets formed otherwise if you you know i don't know where you go without it yeah sort of crazy i i don't want to go down the kind of woke skeptical rabbit hole but you know you hear these stories about all these young people these days especially on university campuses they don't want to engage with a diversity of thought they don't want to engage

with people who don't agree with them politically blah blah blah and we're told that it's just this whole generation who would rather not engage because they don't see that giving people whose opinions they disagree with the platform is useful they think actually the stakes are too high let's not hear those voices we've heard them already we know what they're going to say and not interested where are you on that whole thing you're that you're the chancellor of the university of sussex is that so yeah yeah oh yeah so do you think about these things and do you yeah and i do and you know i have to do a speech every year at graduation and it inevitably comes up in that see i've thought for a long time, actually, that we're developing generations who were incapable of having a qualitative discussion simply because we'd become so quantitative as a society.

So whether it was, you know, league tables or marks out of 10 for things. And I remember when my son was seven or something and he'd seen a film and I said, what did you think? And he said, seven out of 10. I said, you've told me nothing. I I said I have no idea what that means and but you get that kind of um that brevity in terms of just getting to the end point without any interest in the journey there and that I think has led to this kind of age of binarism. Someone said that the sign of intelligence was being able to hold two contradictory arguments in your head.

Yeah. And I think that's true. And I think that if you've got a generation who can't do that, then when someone, when they're presented with it, they just haven't got the facility to do it. And then you're really stuck.

And so, yeah, I think absolutely debate everything. It's about perspective. Again, yeah, I think absolutely debate everything. It's about perspective. Again, humour, I think, is a fantastic indicator of things like intelligence, of empathy. And it's a huge indicator of that. Not doing it professionally or anything like that, but just having it.

I mean, part of trying to be funny is sort of thinking about how other people think right and turning it on its head a little bit yeah so it is an exercise in empathy to that degree also i should say that you know you hear these conversations about all these kids these days they don't you know those are often unhelpful generalizations that really don't apply to a lot of people and they're just taking one or two stories from campuses and vastly exaggerating them. I always find myself somewhere in between thinking, well, there's probably some truth to it, but I'm sure it's not the case that every young person, every person under 20

just refuses to engage with it. I mean, you know, the thing that I suppose I come into contact with more in terms of discussion of attitudes is about race and racism, where people kind of go, you know, we're not a racist country. It's not a racist country at all. And you kind of go, no, I don't know if a country can be, but in terms of underlying attitudes, it may not be i don't i happen to think that the majority of people in britain are not racist and based on my experience of kind of wandering around meeting people from different walks of life that's not to say that there isn't racism out there and same with sexism and everything else you can't deny someone's individual experience if that happened to them it happened to them i was having an interesting conversation about the term white privilege which is not a phrase that i use but i was trying to explain to someone what i felt it meant and he was saying look you know there's a friend of mine and he's you know had a terrible life and his wife left him and can't get a job and he's white

and in what way is he privileged and i said there's no privilege that i can hear you know but i said i'll tell you the difference between him and me who i do feel very privileged because i i'm doing something i love doing and i've got a lovely family and got great friends so i feel very privileged and i said the difference between him and me is that he will never be told to fuck off back to his own country or he should be grateful for being here i said you know that that is white privilege to me it's not about money it's not about comfort it's not that's the wrong kind of privilege you can understand people recoiling from it because they don't personally feel as if they've done anything wrong or been prejudiced against people

and then they're kind of lumped in with this whole group of baddies. And they just go, well, no, that's not me. Well, this is bullshit. You know, this is a ludicrous concept. But I guess it's all about the ongoing process of trying to see, as you say, you know, perspective, trying to see the world from someone else's perspective, trying to see what the world might look like. world from someone else's perspective, trying to see what the world might look like for someone who is treated differently just because of the way they look. And yeah, as you say, that's if you're in the majority, as white people are in this country, then you're just not aware of so many things that people have to put up with.

But that's why I don't use that term, because I think that that's an unhelpful term. White privilege is an unhelpful term, because it's not clearly defined. My thing is that I decided that for myself, certainly, that actually just being kind of sort of as much as I can compassion first helped simplify it for me, because I can just be kind about whatever complexity you have to deal with. Also, because when I was at school, I got the racism from both sides. I got it from the white kids

because it was the fashion of the day. But also I got it from the Asian kids as well when I was about 15 or 16. What were they saying? Well, at the time, this was kind of 1980-ish. And so there was a lot of tension in the air generally and there was one of the asian kids the big personalities in my school so my school was about a third asian so it was a significant minority and and he came up to me and he said

uh uh he said listen um we've all decided you can't talk to white people anymore and i said i don't know if it escaped your attention as to where we're living but that might be kind of difficult and he said well no I mean I mean a kid white kids in school can't talk to white kids in school and I said I they haven't done anything to me so I don't see any reason why I should not talk to them and he said well you're either with us or you're against us and I said well I'm not with you or against you I just I just think it's just a bit weird. So when I then came into school, then the Asian kids would chant white man. Here comes the white man and stuff like that. So it forced me to reassess or assess maybe who my tribe were. Did you resent that or did you understand it?

How did it, did you sort of of think was there a time when you went through a period of self-examination and thought are they right am i being disloyal to a tribe that i should adhere to yeah even if it means like is my kind of centrist appeaser position the wrong way to go um that's a very good question and yes i did because that led into the sixth form and in the sixth form everyone stopped talking to me for three months three and a half months and i remember thinking okay there's a hundred and it was all about this sort of racial thing sparked from that yeah it then became about other things because it was just unsustainable but uh this is why this is why they weren't talking to you.

Now you're pretending it's about us. I was leaving the pubes. And what year was this again? Age-wise, 16, 17. So this would have been... Early 80s. Yeah, it was 283, something like that. Yeah, I did.

And I remember thinking, gosh, there are 114 people in this sixth form. Maybe they're all right. Maybe they're right. Maybe I am kind of like worthless and, you know, are 114 people in this sixth form maybe they're all right maybe they're right maybe i am kind of like worthless and you know bit shit uh and then i also thought maybe they're wrong maybe they're wrong did you talk to your folks about it didn't tell them at all no and i think that's what kept me going i wanted to protect them i didn't want my sister who's younger than me i didn't want her to know because i thought she'll get upset none of them can do anything about it so let me just get on and deal with it um but reassessing the tribe thing was was was a gift actually because it was

then in terms of those pseudo political groupings that come from you know where you live or what your dad did or you know who your dad votes for which country you came from or what religion you all of those things became meaningless to me you know and so really it was when I was 34 when I started acting and writing I kind of went oh my tribe okay great it's creative people brilliant yeah you know and uh and that's remained the same actually i mean i guess most of the schools i went to uh the vast majority of people were white uh so i guess i wasn't aware of it here's white privilege right not having to deal with that for the first 25 years of my life or something like that not even really thinking about it what happened in year 26 uh they all kicked off it was a big race war in our house

between my mom who was Chilean and my dad he didn't realize she was Chilean um no uh you know I I kind of transitioned from this more or less exclusively white environment where I'd been educated and then started working, bartending and getting jobs in restaurants, suddenly in a much more diverse environment. But then again, I still wasn't aware of any racial tensions. It was just interpersonal tensions, normal dramas between humans. So I just managed to dodge it all somehow. And that is a privilege. I mean, anybody who has felt like a minority, you can either kind of feel that's a threatening position to be in. And I think that because of the things that I went through, I kind of ended up thinking, actually, I'm in quite a privileged position.

They're not happy with it and they can't appreciate it. But I know I am because, you know, for instance, being born in London, I have all the same cultural pop reference points as anyone else born in this country. But I also then have shovel loads from my parents so suddenly I've got you know but being brought up with you know loving the Beatles and Elvis and then all the stuff in the you know the 80s uh pop stuff and films particularly which was was and remains my huge passion but then I had all the Bollywood stuff I could talk about and And so it took me some time to appreciate that.

But because I think as a kid, it's that weird conflict, isn't it? You want to be a part of something, but you also want to be seen as an individual. Yeah. I mean, maybe I wasn't. It's entirely possible that I just wasn't paying enough attention. You know what I mean? Like that people around me were going through some of these things. And I just wasn't curious enough or thought. You just didn't care. You knew what they were going through some of these things and i just wasn't curious enough or you just didn't

care thought you know you knew what they were going through and you went i just can't be bothered i've just got to get to mcdonald's yeah there's a new muck thing do you love mcdonald's i don't do you um no i don't love mcdonald's and I never really, I tell you what I did love was the sausage and egg McMuffin. Yes. Um, Joe and Louie and myself and our friends used to meet up very early in the morning because we had Saturday school. Yes. up at about 6 30 or 7 in the morning or something just as the sun was coming up we'd go to mcdonald's in victoria street and smoke a load of ciggies and have a sausage and egg mcmuffin that that did make it sound like they sold mc cigarettes or something they probably did 1940s yeah

ronnie ronnie mcstinkles with a big ciggy in his mouth and a burger in the other hand that was that wouldn't surprise me but yeah we that that was our one of our chief pleasures and that feeling of after you've you've had your you've had your sausage and egg mcmuffin and then you have a ciggy and then you sort of start to pass out because your body's been so badly poisoned. You know what I mean? You start getting really tired. Plus it's early in the morning.

McParamedics. They wanted people to kind of rush out in the clown costume with a stretcher or something. That's right, yeah. With a couple of big burger buns shaped paddles. Clear! Ah, mate. But also, the thing is, you know, McDonald's was relatively new then.

I think it was either McDonald's or KFC or something like that opened in Moscow. And there were queues around the block. I mean, it seems ridiculous because it's fast food, but it's the novelty of the new. I think it was different then. I mean, it seems ridiculous because it's fast food, but it's the novelty of the new. I think it was different then. Well, there was a whole episode of Malcolm Gladwell's revisionist history about how they changed the formula for the fries. Maybe they were trying to make them slightly healthier and in the process just made them way less nice. Wasn't there a rumor that went around at one stage that there was no potato in it it was just kind of coal and sort of i don't know stuff they'd found lots in the corner

just deep fried for some reason you reminded me when i went uh to york with a bunch of people i think we were doing a play when i was at university and i only had enough money for to buy a donut but I felt bad that I didn't have enough that I could buy other people donuts and stuff like that so you know we all split up in different directions and said yeah we'll meet you back in about half an hour or something and I went into this donut shop bought a jam donut and as I was coming out of the shop I'd seen the others had doubled back and were now heading towards me. And the only thing I could do was to shove the entire damn donut in my mouth and try to chew it as quickly as possible. And what happened was that it kind of congealed into a...

The only thing you could do. It was the only thing. I couldn't throw it away. It's kind of... You could have torn it up, couldn't you? No, there were about eight people. I mean, that would have just been donut bites. Well, I get offering them the... Yeah. We're we're gonna have donut bites who's got a knife and a ruler

no one had so you shoved the whole thing in there right and i was trying and then i and it settled in the middle of my mouth and it because it was so big i couldn't open my jaw big enough to get my teeth to bite any of it so i was trying desperately and it just became this round it eroded gently so it was this round mass ball in the middle of my mouth so now I couldn't speak and they caught up with me and and they go oh yeah listen we decided to come this way and all I could do was make noises and then as soon as their heads had turned try to kind of like prise my jaw open so I could just get a couple of teeth on it to kind of break it. It was a nightmare. Never done it again.

When was this? This was, I was about 22, I think. Oh, okay. All right. This wasn't last week. Might have been. Biscuits. I am in love with you

i'll dip you in my tea but pull you out before you fall apart i won't abandon you biscuits biscuits mice is your son aware of your work and does he enjoy it? Yeah, I think he does. Yeah, I think that it was weird for him when he was little because he'd see us on TV. And yeah, I think he does like it. I think he's gone back to find some of the earlier stuff, the Goodness Gracious Me's and the Kumars and stuff like that.

I haven't specifically shown him things. I haven't said you should watch this i think you'll like it i think that he kind of just discovered it what about your kids they kind of they seen your old stuff not really uh they saw a couple of things recently we were having supper and somehow i think my wife mentioned a couple of things she was like oh you should see dad's thing there he did that and maybe someone mentioned coolio and my wife said uh oh you know dad did a thing with coolio and his dad because we drove around los angeles with coolio and his humvee with my dad aka bad dad and so i showed that to them and they were impressed they oh that's and my my son who was then 16 and tends to be the least communicative and grumpiest of the clan he was uncharacteristically cheery and effusive oh that's great yeah he was like wow that's cool and and that really gave me a kick oh that's

brilliant yeah yeah have your boys read or listened to your very excellent may i say book oh thanks man um no is the short answer and i think probably that's right i think you have to maintain sorry is that their choice or yours no i i haven't suggested that they don't read it i'd be happy if they did. I don't think there's anything weird in there. The reason I ask is because I listened to it on audiobook, and it's one of the best audiobooks I've heard. Thanks, man.

Because I think tonally it's such a difficult thing to judge. Yeah. I thought it was just spot on, every aspect of it. But for them, for me me i'm hearing a kind of you know a an incredibly well-told journey which is very emotionally honest uh do you want all this in quotes but for them it's their dad and it's their granddad and it's their grandma and it's kind of you know it's it's a different they know the real connection yeah but also you know they are you know you are talking about people that they are directly connected to whereas for me it was like listening to you know uh somebody talking about a friend

talking about their parents or yeah yeah yeah and um so that's why i was kind of curious as to how they would process that or whether you would help them to process parts of it. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they will be interested in the future. I mean, if they're anything like I was, then they're just not interested because your parents are the most boring people in the world. I know everyone has different kinds of relationships with their parents, but the one that I had was, you're boring and I don't want to know about you because other people are much more interesting. And I've said, and I said in the book that perhaps part of the reason for that is that they sent us away and they sent us to boarding school. So that link, that closeness was severed and never really reestablished.

But now they're gone, both both of them i want to know about them so much and i want to know what made them tick because they never talked about it i think it's also an age thing i think that when you're younger you're so fixated on your yeah own unknown future that the perspective of where you sit along a family timeline it's kind of and you know your grandfather was yeah that's right you're involved with the business of creating your own yeah journey of being but at some point they will be interested in that and how wonderful that they have a document because i mean i remember thinking this years ago that the greatest gift that every that parents could give their kids is their story because after five ten generations what you'll have is a personal social history of

the world because that you will have lived through the disasters that make the history books and the attack on this and the thing fell down and the they won the cup and the yeah and but wait the thing fell down yeah that's why they that's how they won the cup it's in the future i mean it's got to think to worry about now it will fall down and then they will win the cup yeah um but it's that it's that whole thing we suddenly go gosh actually if i was able to do that i mean my parents were both born under the british, you know, but their parents, they weren't making the history, but they were observers to real history. As opposed to us reading it in a much more disjointed way. Did you know a lot about your folks growing up or did you discover all this stuff later on?

I knew that they were both born in pre-partition British India and that at partition, along with the biggest exodus in history, which is 15 million people, had to move either towards India or the newly created Pakistan. newly created Pakistan. And this was, for those of us not great on our history, this was a result of the British Empire at the time deciding that this was a good idea because why? The simplified version of it that, as I understand it, is that 1945, Second World War ended. There was a lot of pressure on various colonies being independent and India was one of the bigger and more important ones. colonies being independent, and India was one of the bigger and more important ones. And I think that the British government at the time were afraid that India on its own, if the British left, the Indians would go, get out, you know, you bloody occupiers. And then Britain would have no influence in that region at all. And they thought by creating a Pakistan for majority Muslims, that the British would have that as a foothold of some sort of influence in the Asian subcontinent,

and that India would probably side with a more Soviet approach, socialist approach. And I think that's one of the reasons it was created it was the divide and rule thing and at least we'll have a foothold in that area and I think that's why it happened and it happened in the end very very quickly and then my dad came to Britain in 1956 and my mum a couple of years later so I knew that about them what I didn't know were some of the details that I got from family members uncles and aunts about how kind of horrific their experiences had been so near my dad I didn't know until I did the documentary was that you know he was a refugee and it was a refugee camp in Delhi that he had to go and stay in. His father had died the year before.

He was about 15. And so those kind of challenges that he had to deal with, I had no idea about. And also the horrors in their old village and some of the things that they saw, which I don't blame them for not telling me because you want to protect your kids from that kind of stuff. But it was very interesting to discover all of that. You interviewed some guy, some old fellow with a white beard. And he was talking about remembering that his dad had executed children. Well, executed his daughter. So this guy's sister. Yeah.

And what was the logic of him having done that? So there was a baying mob that had surrounded their village. Yeah. And they kind of said, okay, we're going to have to fight to the death. You know, because if they take us alive, they'll torture us and then kill us. And they will rape the women. And so we're not going to let that happen. And who is the baying mob?

Like, how is this situation? It was sectarian. So this was a Sikh village. Okay. And at that point, it was a kind of rabid muslim mob it would have been at that time i'm sure there were similar things going on the other way around but this was the guy that i spoke to and he said yeah he said his father was the head man of the village and said this is what we're gonna have to do we're gonna fight to the death

and they went right we'll fight to the death. We're not going to let the women be captured alive. You know, better we kill them than they are. And this guy, as I was talking to his sister, to the headman's daughter, basically in order to set an example, proffered her head first. It's the only time I've ever interviewed somebody that without realising it,

my hands have been over my mouth while he was talking it was kind of it's that kind of unimaginable horror really that um that you kind of it's those bits where you kind of go oh god the inhumanity how can people be just so kind of bestial and then you know there's that great quote from mr rogers you know mr rogers neighborhood sure yeah you know which his mum said to him which was she said you know whenever you see a disaster on tv whenever you see something horrible happen look for the helpers there are always helpers and which is a really lovely quote and and i think you know that's the thing that the only thing that tempers that sense of right oh my god people can be animals and you go actually do

you know what sometimes they're in the minority sometimes they're silent but there are always people who are stepping forward to help you know we should sort of end on that note we should really but we're not going to oh we're going gonna plow on excellent to something way more trivial now it is i can ask you a superficial silly question yeah did you ever have a crush on a puppet character oh my god that was really yeah that's pretty much a massive handbrake turn that's even sharper than i would normally do uh god i don't think so because because richard herring does talk about this kind of thing and i don't is that true um no it was always actual humans for me okay i wasn't meaning anything sexual which was meant give me an example did you it sounds as if

you might well i think that you know i think that um, I think that, you know, I think that Jessica Rabbit. Yeah, but Jessica Rabbit. I mean, that's what she was all about. It was like, oh, she's all curvy and come hither. It was the voice, really. Yeah. Who did the voice? Kathleen Turner.

Kathleen Turner. Right. Yeah. I met Kathleen Turner. Did you? And she was, yeah, her voice, it just kind of, I started to kind of like quiver. I bet she's got some stories to tell. Yeah, she didn't tell me a single one.

Who is the most loose-lipped celeb that you have come across? Well, it's a clever question because if I was to name a name, it would be me, wouldn't it? Immediately. Who's in Discreet and great fun with it? Richard E. Grant. Oh, yeah, that's right. I mean, Richard's really lovely. And what you see is what you get.

And he will absolutely say what he thinks of someone. Yeah. I mean, he's hilarious as hell. He's not indiscreet. He just has great stories. Sure. With Nell and I, though, that is a film, eh? And, I mean, I know he must be tired of that reference,

but it's hard to get away when you've done a film like that. That's one for the ages, though, isn't it? If you are in any way the kind of person that is in the whole thing for some spurious notion of immortality, then job done there, surely. And it was his first one. And he doesn't get tired of it it's kind of i mean i my 15 year old saw it for the first time oh yeah what did he make of it loved it right that's good and i said look i think this is one of the best comic performances on film i said rich d grant's performance in it is is stonking actually because it's it's such a difficult one

to judge and because it only works in in relation to paul mcgann's character the eye or marwood um but it's fantastic and and you know trying to sell that as a premise now what is it where's a couple of blokes who go to this kind of place in Yorkshire for a few days? And, you know, what's the journey? Well, there's not really a journey. It's just kind of like, but it is brilliant. It's brilliant. I mean, it's one of those films, like if I met someone, I heard about an American celebrity who I won't name,

who I really like, who's a really funny performer, quite young guy. And I was in Los Angeles and a friend of his was telling me that he didn't find it funny at all you know my friend had said oh you're gonna love this this is a great british film one of the classic british comedies and this guy was like i don't get it it's not funny that would be a problem for me if i knew that someone didn't like that film but that's the thing again going back to that thing about finding your tribes. That's the thing that's interesting about it is because, you know, when you're younger, you go, you know, I love the Beatles and I love Elvis Presley and I love Bowie. And so those are my kind of touchstones.

And then you meet other people and they go, oh, that guy, he loves Beatles, Bowie and Elvis. And you go, oh, great. You know, go over and you can have a conversation. And then he says something horribly sexist and racist about someone and you kind of go oh man I'm really disappointed you can't like them you can't like you'd like them for spurious terrible reasons that's right and it's that awful thing isn't it and it's same with certain films as well and and with comedy is that thing of judging people. Where you're trying to find, you hope there's a deeper connection because you have the love for the same thing. I've weaned myself off it because it's so, I'm aware that it's not a valuable metric, really.

There's too much else about a person that's important. I'm saying this because I know it's what i'm supposed to say but i don't believe it now i do sort of believe it my because my wife's not into a lot of the same things she doesn't share my enthusiasm for a lot of things which used to disturb me a little bit in the early days i you know when i'd find out that she wasn't into something that i was particularly passionate about i I think, oh. Yeah. But you know what the thing, because it's the same with Mira and myself.

I mean, you know, but that's fine. I mean, she likes some Elvis songs. She quite likes the Beatles. Yeah. She likes some of David Bowie. But in comparison to my kind of extreme sort of fanaticism, it's fine. Can I go, you don't hate it. That's all right it is i've

had difficulty in part with girlfriends in the past where somebody just went can't stand him i'd be going i just sorry bye but but you're very attractive i know it's a sort of it speaks to a strange kind of immaturity in men that it is such a deal breaker. And women, well, you know, I'm making massive generalizations here, but sometimes women, I think, feel frustrated by it. And they're like, that shit is not important. There's other more important things. You're like, no, that's when the world makes sense is films and pop stars. Right, let's go again what don't you fucking understand kick your fucking ass let's go again what the fuck is it with you i want you off the fucking

set you prick no you're a nice guy the fuck are you doing no don't shut me up no no like this no no don't shut me up like this fuck's sake man you're amateur seriously man you and me we're fucking done professionally one of the highlights of my lockdown viewing was the discovery of Unforgotten. I'd never seen it before. I'm always late to the party with great things. So this was a show that has been on since 2015. That's usually about my speed, five years behind with things that everyone knows are great.

I've heard you talk about the fact that it's one of the favorite things you've done and i can understand why it was really a very unusual special thing i haven't been as as moved and impressed by a show since i watched happy valley that's another great show i think that's brilliant yeah i mean i can't take any credit because i think well you can because you were very very good in it well i was there yeah but uh I think the writing is fantastic. And I think really what sets it apart is that I think it's, you know, these four mini dramas within, you know, under the umbrella of a whodunit. I think each one of those separate stories of the suspects, people of interest, could be a series in itself. I think they're incredibly kind of richly drawn.

in itself. I think they're incredibly kind of richly drawn. For people listening who missed it the way I missed it before this year, detectives Cassie Stewart and Sunil Sunny Khan try to solve a series of cold cases involving murders and historic disappearances.

But the thing that makes it way better than the average kind of detective drama as far as I'm concerned, is the characters like every single character yourself and Nicola Walker's character and all the rest of the people and the perpetrators, all of them are so well-rounded and fleshed out. And you get this really humane perspective on each one of them and what might have motivated people to behave in these terrible ways sometimes. Yeah. Obviously, I kind of read it on the page first and I thought it was fantastic on the page. I remember reading the scripts as if they were a novel or something. I forgot I was in it. But yeah, I think it's that. I think there's a lot

of humanity and empathy at the heart of the show, but also the number of detectives and ex-detectives who've written to me. Oh, really? That's interesting. Yeah. They've kind of said, look, you know, just normally we're shouting at the TV when any kind of police procedural comes on. The one I got recently actually was a retired detective in in west sussex who said that's what we strive for and that's what the best of the detectives did and i think the problem is you end up initially being compared to other detective tropes and so one of the standard ones is detectives are determined and angry yeah and what they're doing is fight for justice.

And then there's lots of shouting that detectives seem to do. Or they've been so ground down by what they've seen that they're now divorced, alcoholic. Well, this was the interesting thing about detective shows generally is that when I was a kid in the 70s, you know, every detective, and they were mostly American ones, had some sort of hook to hang it on. So McLeod had a horse and Columbo had his tatty raincoat and was a bit forgetful and he had a cigar. Gosh, who else was there? Kojak was just bald. Holmes and Yo-Yo. Holmes and Yo-Yo.

Do you remember them? Good call. Yo-Yo was a robot. Was a robot. Frank Cannon was just overweight. I mean, that was the only thing. You try to think about what else did he bring to the table. Right.

Iron Side was in a wheelchair. In a wheelchair. That's why it was called Iron Side. Oh. So each one had that hook thing. Yeah. And I think there's been a hangover from that. And obviously drama comes from conflict.

So then it was detectives who kind of like, who are carrying that conflict from home, as you say, the divorce or we've got a booze problem or they're taking drugs or, and then they're with a partner and they get on with a partner and that's kind of like tension. And suddenly this was about police work

and it was about, yeah, what are the emotional kind of uh ripples from that stone being dropped in the pond which is something that happened decades ago and now someone's knocked on the door and said can we talk to you about this person that we think you knew 25 years ago and what are the repercussions of that so i think it's emotionally honest had you worked with nicola walker before never met her right. We kind of hit it off immediately. And so, you know, she has been one of the gifts in terms of being, you know, becoming friends with her. You were already someone who'd done a lot of acting before then,

but was that intimidating, working with someone like her? It was terrifying. I remember sitting next to her at the read-through of the scripts we do at the beginning of any kind of series. at the read-through of the scripts we do at the beginning of any kind of series and opposite us there was tom courtney and there was jemma jones and and i was sitting next to nicola and nicola at one point said to me she's not my goodness she said just look across the table she's got we got to act with them and i said you're one of them yeah yeah i mean did you ever feel as if you were getting looked down on for being a kind of comedy person yes mainly from very tall people yeah as well so it's a double whammy and initially a lot of the press response to me was kind of he's the comedy bloke what's he doing in this i'm still slightly surprised i'm in it to be honest because. Because I honestly did think, I went to the audition,

I thought, they don't cast me as a bloody detective in something as good as this. You looked comfortable. That's half the battle, right? It's more than half the battle. I think it is, yeah. You know, it doesn't matter what way it works. You want to come across as believable.

And really, that's generally about an emotional truth. Yeah. And if you go for that, rather than acting, acting an emotional truth, it tends to come across better. Did you have to cry at all? I did a bit in the last. Oh, yes, of course. In the last one. Yeah, I did.

Yeah. It's also I think it's trying to be truthful in the moment. I mean, not everybody sheds tears and you know you can see someone whose spirit has been crushed we see it on the news sometimes or when you have a documentary and reports of you know various things it's not people kind of simply wailing it's that old thing where people kind of say actually what's more moving is seeing someone trying not to cry. Right.

It's a little bit like the drunk thing as well. I remember Richard E. Grant saying that he realised it was a question of trying not to act drunk was the thing. And he doesn't drink. Right, exactly. Which makes his performance in Widnail all the more remarkable. Yeah, yeah. Is that he's allergic to alcohol, so he can't drink it. Yeah, that's crazy, isn't it? So that must have been tough when that

finished i imagine that was a really amazing chunk of your life being with that group of people and doing that show and we are doing another one are you yeah oh really that's great yeah we're filming it next year well that's fine you don't have to say anything now because it's coming back. Well, except, you know, without some characters. So in that sense, yeah. Wait, am I in it? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'm going to get a call, aren't I?

Okay. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there is a scene. It's Sparkle. It's Sparkle time. It is. Where you have to swim through some effluence. And it's real. Yeah, otherwise, what's the point?

Exactly. Anyone can act it. How old are you now, if you don't mind me asking? 57. 57. 57. Are you approaching wisdom? Do you feel as if you are picking up a few um important lessons in your

late 50s yes i am one of my dad's projects that he thought was going to solve all his money problems but did not was a a book called words of wisdom what basically he was going to do a book of uplifting quotes it's a good idea. Which is a good idea. I think someone should do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, people have done it. I think that was part of the problem.

But I always encouraged him. I said, that's a great idea. He loved finding uplifting quotes because I think by nature he was fairly pessimistic. But you seem like a fairly positive person. Is that right? Or do you? Yeah yeah i think so yeah i mean i think that you can train yourself to to see the positivity in people and humanity ultimately because i think that it does exist and the fear and the anger become so loud that that's all you hear and particularly now with social media it's just reinforced the

anger is reinforced the fear is reinforced and it's like a you know mouse wheel thing you're suddenly on it and you can't get off it so it's not about denying those things of sadness and being upset and angry i think all of those things are really important but how do you not dwell on that becomes the thing so then the people that you surround yourself with all that stuff becomes really important you know that's that's the wonderful thing about I mean there's so much stuff out there now to access in terms of whether it's self-help or entertainment or whatever but you know one of the things that I really I mean this is just such a treat for me to be on this but it's one of the things i really

love about your podcast is that they feel like conversations they never feel like someone with a checklist there's no format the way you interact is really great you're kind of emotionally honest within it you're really funny it's it's kind of you know it's a really great place to be thank you no that's nice of you man thank you very much it just happens to be the truth angling for that i think you were now i feel like i've been maneuvered into that no thank you i'm delighted i mean i hope that's what it is do you have though the way that my dad did actual favorite aphorisms and things that you find helpful. For example, one of his favorites was, a soft answer turneth away wrath,

which is from the book of Proverbs. Wrath who? Tim. Yeah, suddenly Tim doesn't turn up and he's wondering why he can't get in. Tim and Eli. All you need to do to get rid of them is just give them a soft answer.

Another of his favourites was nothing can take the place of persistence. And he certainly was persistent. Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That is true. My dad liked... Unless you're flying. We were catapulted.

You have to get on the plane. Yes, you could be catapulted. All right, that's a star at the end of that one it's not the size sorry i just feel like i'm now just kind of like gainsaying all my dad's valued words of wisdom no they absolutely need to be interrogated it's not the size of the dog in the fight it's the size of the fight in the dog it's one of my dad's favorites there's two dogs that can have a fight right and one is huge but a bit timid but probably quite intimidating to look at.

So you've got that. That's an advantage. And then you've got this other dog who's really up for it, but is asthmatic. Right. Right. And after one circle run is kind of... I mean... He's stuffed, isn't he?

Yeah, he is. This, above all, to thine own self be true. I mean, he's stuffed, isn't he? Yeah, he is. This, above all, to thine own self be true. That's very difficult to disagree with, actually. Also, what if you're a fucking prick? But then you wouldn't be kind of interested in a kind of aphorism like that. No, that's true. You would hope not. Someone would go, listen, I just wanted to say,

above all else, they'd go, piss off. All right. But I think that is true, actually. But I think knowing That's hard, though, isn't it? Self is really hard. Yeah. Think about that, listeners.

Wait. This is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop.

These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats that was sanjeev baskar there talking to me and i'm very grateful indeed to sanjeev i really enjoyed spending some time with him and talking and getting some nice

compliments love it there's a smattering of sanjeev related links in the description of the podcast but I think the main takeaway for you listeners should be if you haven't seen Unforgotten yet get on it now is that the yellow

hammer Now, is that the yellow hammer? I'm going to just check. If it is the yellow hammer, then that means that I've learned the calls of two birds. I think I've got the skylark down, but is that the yellow hammer? Where is my app? I'm using Chirpomatic, I'm not sponsored by them other bird call identification apps

are available recording analysing top matches chaffinch nightingale or red start oh damn it

I thought it was a yellow hammer chaffinch that seems likely ok so I still don't know anything about nature. All I know about nature is that Rosie likes to roll in the turds of other animals.

What the hell is that all... Rosie, don't do that! Ugh. Come over here expecting a cuddle. Turd coat. I still love you. What was I going on about? Oh yeah, I can't identify birds.

That's a shame. Anyway, listen, our podcast. I'm going to get back. Get this edited, put it out. Start work on next week's podcast. No, that's OK. You're welcome. Thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support. Thank you, Seamus, as ever.

Thanks to Becca Tashinsky for additional conversation editing. Much appreciated, Becca. Tyshinsky for additional conversation editing much appreciated Becca thanks to Helen Green who does the artwork for this podcast and a reminder that you can purchase a poster based on Helen's beautiful artwork for the paperback edition of Ramble Book glowingly mentioned by Sanjeev there hadn't asked him to say any of that

he just couldn't stop himself because he thought it was so good anyway if you want to own a piece of ramble book joy in another medium then you'll find a link to the poster signed poster no less signed by me and rosie and helen link in the description i'm walking through some fairly long grass now and I have shorts on, so I'm aware that I'm inviting the unwanted attention of ticks.

Had to remove a tick from Rosie's eyelid the other day. That wasn't good. Because she doesn't know what's going on. She probably doesn't even know she has a tick on her eyelid. Suddenly everybody's holding her down. You get her snout. You get her body. I'll go in with the tick prongs.

Must have been very distraughtening for poor old dog Tanyan. Anyway, we got that thing off. Great story, Buckles. Thank you. Hey, listen. I really appreciate you listening have i thanked everyone i think so thanks to acast as well uh for their continued support but yeah most of all you know i'm very uh appreciative of you and your continued loyalty to the podcast and the kind messages you get to me one way or another so thanks a lot

i'm going to get physical with you and hug you if that's okay it's a sonic hug though so you won't go carefully i hope uh things are okay for you out there in fact i love you. Bye! Give me a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pun for me, thumbs up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pun for me, thumbs up.

Give me a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pun for me, thumbs up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Bye. Thank you.