Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor and writer best known for creating and starring in the comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, and for playing the grandma in The Kumars at Number 42.
On the island
Eight records
Nitin mixes classical Indian influences with jazz and the result is fresh, beautiful and sometimes confrontational.
This whole song is taken from a scene where it's the girl's hen night and all the female relatives are sitting around singing rather rude songs about the groom. These were the same songs that I grew up with.
Young, Gifted and BlackFavourite
This was the first song I remember hearing that... actually was talking about... pride, self-pride, racially.
Joni Mitchell was a huge influence on my student days. There's something so vulnerable and painfully beautiful about her voice that takes me right back to those days, really.
It somehow epitomised what I thought The Capital was all about, and I still think it is the ultimate love song to London.
Pizzicato 5 is this rather crazy Japanese jazz combo and I love this song because it's got a real sense of fun and it's a song that my daughter and I play when we're driving along on the school run
I had to choose a song from Bombay Dreams really because it's been a big part of my life for the last couple of years and this song is A Wedding Kavali.
Louis Armstrong has a quite a profound effect on me and this particular song I think is just one of the most romantic songs ever written
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:23When do you feel it became trendy to be Asian?
I would say around about the time of goodness gracious me. So it's the last five, seven years, huh? Yes, there was a sudden flowering of my generation that had been born and brought up here, but obviously had Indian or Pakistani parents. Unlike our parents, we regard this as home. And we weren't just going to be passive onlookers in society. We were part of it and we found a voice and wanted to express that creatively.
Presenter asks
5:09What is it that the white audience likes about [your] humour or finds attractive?
I think the main thing was that it was unapologetic. It came at the end of a long period of political correctness where people became very scared of writing Asian characters that were anything but noble and long-suffering. Very boring to play, I have to tell you. And here we came along going, well, you know, we don't know if it makes you laugh, it makes us laugh, there's a bit of Hindi in it, we don't really care if you don't get it or not.
Presenter asks
7:57How much does [your comedy] help combat racism?
I think it does an awful lot. I think that a well placed joke can probably do as much good as three hours of a political speech. Because once you understand a group of people emotionally, it's much harder for you to dismiss them as them.
The keepsakes
The book
I'd like to take a Hindi English dictionary because my vocabulary is appalling. I can get through talking to relatives, but really I need to extend the yes, the no and yes, I'd like another one of those, please. I'd like to have a bigger vocabulary, so I think I'll take that.
The luxury
I had two years of piano lessons which I absolutely loved and then they all stopped because my brother was born and life got very busy and I've always regretted that I didn't continue. So I could finally get to. It's going to be very self-improving on your island. I know, I think it's the only way to survive it really. Look forward to something and come off a better person, you know.
Presenter asks
15:57Why do you say that [your childhood] experience made you creative and sparky?
Lots of different reasons. Firstly, that I was asked very early on who I thought I was. Where do you come from? Why don't you go back to where you come from? These are questions that most people never have to think about. I had to think about them at a very early age. So quite early on, you are questioning your sense of belonging and identity. And how you're going to express that. That's my theory personally of why so many of my generation have turned to different art forms, because very early on we had to go, this is who I am, this is what I think, this is how I'm going to express it.
Presenter asks
25:38What are you rewriting [Bombay Dreams] for with what in mind [for the Broadway audience]?
The knowledge about Indian culture is a lot less for the American public. I mean, we really take for granted actually how much the British know about Asian culture now. You know, you can't even use word like chapati freely in New York. I mean, and that's a sophisticated city. We're a very invisible little group over there, powerful. There's a lot of very successful Indians, but culturally they don't know that much about us. And so we just have to... We have to simplify it in ways actually, just so that, you know, they don't get too scared.
Presenter asks
29:05How does your daughter's life differ from [your childhood]?
Well, on a on a purely obvious and practical level, her classroom is like a meeting of the UN. That's incredibly different to how I grew up. My culture was a a little hidden thing that I only shared with people inside my house. It wasn't reflected anywhere outside. So she is third generation, a British Asian, is much more comfortable in her own skin. She knows who she is. She's more... Assimilated in every way, yes? I think so, and also much more assimilated to the reality of life, certainly in London, is that London is many, many cultures and she sees the interest and beauty in each one, and so do her friends, and I I love that.
“We are the same people, separated by a tan, really.”
“It's a difference between impersonation and being honest, talking from your experience.”
“I think vanity for an actress is a killer, actually. The minute you start worrying about does your bum look big and that, or is your lip liner alright, you're not really doing your job.”