Sanjeev Bhaskar

“Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing 'M*A*S*H'; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling.”

“Theatre has always been better disposed to colourblind casting than telly or film. Given that most television is contemporary, and it reaches 56 million people, I am disappointed there still isn't more representation.”

“I love team sports - they give me something to focus on rather than the fact that I can't breathe or my muscles are aching.”

“Both my parents were migrant workers who came to the U.K. in the Fifties to better themselves. The culture I grew up in was to work hard, save hard and to look after your family.”

“When we created 'Goodness Gracious Me,' it was quoting 'Python' and Woody Allen lines that really bonded the writers, and the 'Spamalot' material is so utterly, wonderfully surreal that it hasn't dated.”

“Good diet and exercise are key, but abject fear has its own rewards. And arriving on the first day for rehearsals for 'Spamalot' and seeing all these much younger, much fitter people, who I was going to be on stage with, became a catalyst for cutting out the more unhealthy aspects of my life.”

“I've always felt I had to prove myself, and now it has become second nature. When I first went to university, I took lodgings with a woman who said, 'What are the chances of you staining my pans?' I said, 'I don't think I understand the question...' and she said, 'When you cook your curries.'”

“The worst moment in my life was when I was seven years old and I discovered that there was a thing such as racism. You don't know you're different until someone lets you know.”

“It always interested me that 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'The Kumars,' when shown around the world, were referred to as British comedy. It was only here that they were referred to as Asian comedy, even though I always felt it was very British in its humour and structure.”

“Because of my Asian-ness, I couldn't be anonymous - what I said, what I ate, what I did at the weekend were startlingly different to what everyone else did. I was also a performer, quick and chameleon-like, good at accents, so that made me stand out.”

“My mum thought my TV and film addiction was laziness. If you're an immigrant, you know you'll never be an accepted part of society, but you hope your children will be, and you try to make them essential to the community in a practical way - being a doctor or a lawyer. Acting was beyond their comprehension.”

“During an early performance of 'Spamalot,' I left my regal gloves in the fridge to cool down and didn't remember them until I was on stage. They needed to be thawed overnight.”

“One of the benefits for me of starting late in this business is I realised that if acting was the only thing I could do, I would struggle, so I always wrote as well.”

“I was far too embarrassed to share the experience of Indian food at school. As a kid, you're desperate to fit in, to assimilate in some way, and everything about me stood out.”

“I have issues with inheritance tax, particularly coming from a migrant family. My dad has worked incredibly hard all his life, so it seems odd to me that someone who has gone through that experience and has managed to save then gets taxed for dying.”

“Good drama, challenging drama - and comedy for that matter - has a place in the daytime schedule.”

“I am officially a doctor, and believe it or not, I can save lives and tune certain instruments and can beat peasants with a stick.”

“Michael Bates was a very funny actor; he'd served in India, could speak Urdu, and had great comic timing.”

“With 'Mumbai Calling,' I was surprised it was ITV that went for it because it didn't traditionally seem like the kind of programme they would make.”

“I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.”