Sanjeev Kohli is one of Scotland’s most famous actors and comedians. Best known for his role as a Muslim shopkeeper in the award-winning sitcom Still Game, Sanjeev has also featured in the BBC soap opera River City, and was a writer for the BBC sketch comedy show Goodness Gracious Me.
We spoke with Sanjeev about Still Game, racism, and diversity in Scottish television and comedy.
-----------------
Debuting in 2002, Still Game is one of Scotland’s most popular television shows, with millions of viewers tuning in to watch its seventh season which aired back in 2016.
With an eighth season expected for 2018, we asked Sanjeev how he feels being involved in Scotland’s favorite comedy.
"Well, I’m lucky in that it is a show that is almost universally loved, and I can afford to be objective about the show because I don’t write it, I’m in it. So I am a fan of the show as much as anyone else, I just happen to be a fan that gets to be in it, so I count myself very lucky.
And when they talk about the audiences for Still Game in Scotland, they equate it to football audiences in terms of the number of people that watch the show [...]. I’ve got a friend that worked in a Chinese carryout restaurant, and she said the phone stops ringing five minutes before Still Game starts because everyone [has] ordered their food. They sit for half an hour and the phone doesn’t ring, and then when the show finishes people start phoning again.
So I mean it’s a real privilege to be involved in a show that has that kind of impact on its audience."
So that’s the next Doctor Who officially announced. pic.twitter.com/MN8tQUIDZE
— Sanjeev Kohli (@govindajeggy) December 14, 2017
-----------------
Demographically within the U.K., Scotland is far less ethnically diverse than England. According to the 2011 census, 96% of Scots said they identify as white in comparison to 86% in England.
Like elsewhere in the U.K., racism and bigotry is an issue facing ethnic and religious minorities in Scotland. Despite this, Sanjeev believes his Muslim character in Still Game is well-loved by the show’s audience.
"As someone of Indian/Asian heritage that grew up in Scotland, having suffered a little bit of racism growing up in the 70s and 80s, and to a lesser degree the 90s, it is so gratifying that an Asian - a Muslim - shopkeeper of a certain age [...] has been called a hero by certain people.
And that is a lovely thing to be involved in, because I think we are living in a time—especially in the U.K.—especially now, where race is being used as a weapon by certain right-wing factions of the media and in politics. It’s lovely to be able to play a character who [...] humanizes Muslims rather than demonizes Muslims.
You know that’s been a very nice aspect of being involved in the show definitely."
-----------------
We asked Sanjeev why it was decided that Navid would be a Muslim character, especially given the fact that Sanjeev himself is not Muslim.
"Well there was a very basic reason why Navid ended up being Muslim. So I was cast—and Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill who write the show they are also friends—and I said to them you know, I’d like to play a version of my dad. Because Navid kind of is almost like a Muslim version of my dad physically. You know, if you put a turban on Navid, he would be my dad, physically.
The reason we didn’t make him a Sikh was that in the very first series in the last episode, [Navid’s] daughter is getting married, and everyone in the estate wants an invite to this wedding [...] because obviously Asian weddings have this reputation of being big parties. But the punchline to all that is that they show up to this wedding and there’s no alcohol. And I said to the guys, I said look, if you go to a Sikh wedding, it’s basically like a brewery, it’s full of alcohol, so my character couldn’t conceivably be a Sikh character because there would be no truth in that [...] so it will be an easy fix if you just make the character a Muslim. [...]
I don’t think there was any big political reason to make him Muslim."
If life was about cardigans, NAVID WOULD WIN#StillGameLive#cardigangoals pic.twitter.com/WdARv6nJAc
— Sanjeev Kohli (@govindajeggy) February 14, 2017
-----------------
Sanjeev also gave his thoughts about the representation of minorities, ethnic and religious, in Scottish media and comedy.
"Well I tell you, another show that I worked on was a show called Goodness Gracious Me [...] it was an all-Asian sketch show. I was one of the writers on it, and that started on radio and then went on television [...] and that felt like a real moment, that felt like Asians of all religions were getting an outing.
In a half-hour show you could deal with lots of different things, you could be more serious, or be more light, it was Asians poking fun at Asians but also Asians poking fun at white people’s attitude to Asians, and it felt like we were unpacking a lot of things. [...]
This was my thinking, now we’ve had our sketch show [...] we can look forward to watching mainstream sitcoms, or mainstream dramas and just seeing loads of Asian characters, we don’t even have to bother with the whole ethnic thing anymore.
And that never really happened. I mean, I watch dramas, and it is refreshing when you see an Asian character and you don’t immediately think oh theres a brown guy theres a brown girl, you just think there’s an actor. And I think the problem with the portrayal of ethnic characters in drama and comedy, is that that person was probably going to be the only ethnic person in that production, it's almost like all of the community are looking at this one person to represent everyone and that's never going to happen. [...]
I know from my personal experience that I have pitched ideas which have quite a lot of Asian characters, and the feedback disappointingly which has come back to me is, “yeah, where are the white people in this?”
I’m thinking, no, I’m writing a British sitcom which happens to be populated by Asians, what’s your problem? It can be a bit disheartening. Sometimes I think they’ve nailed it, sometimes I think we’re still not there."
-----------------
Sanjeev parised Still Game’s writers, Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill, for not focusing on Navid’s race or religion, but equally not ignoring it.
"Navid’s character in Still Game, he’s an Asian character, a Muslim character right, so it would be beyond reason if that character didn’t go to a wedding, or didn't mention his religion at some point. Because that wouldn’t be truthful either, you can’t just throw everything out, baby with the bathwater.
But the way that Ford and Greg very cleverly wrote the character, it wasn’t until episode six of season one that he mentioned a wedding. So yes, he mentioned a wedding but it’s not the first thing, it doesn't define Navid, but equally if he didn’t mention a wedding that would feel untruthful as well."
-----------------
We finished by asking whether or not he feels that he could use his platform as a well known Scottish actor and comedian to highlight issues regarding racism and prejudice.
"I think comedy is the best way to educate people. I think people a lot of the time don’t know that they are being educated if you can dress it up in a joke. [...]
I think I’m well placed to maybe [...] you know I’m not hard-lined politically, but when I see injustice I like to try and deal with it. But we live in an era of social networking where I think that a lot of people think that their opinion is worth more than it is. I don’t think my opinion is worth a huge amount, but I know that I can use humor."
