Goodness Gracious Me | |
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DVD cover
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Genre | Sketch comedy |
Created by |
Sanjeev Bhaskar Meera Syal Anil Gupta |
Starring |
Sanjeev Bhaskar Meera Syal Kulvinder Ghir Nina Wadia |
Opening theme | Goodness Gracious Me (Bhangra version) |
Ending theme | Goodness Gracious Me (Bhangra version) |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of series | 5 (2 radio series and 3 TV series) |
No. of episodes | 39 (19 radio and 20 TV) |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) | Jon Plowman |
Running time | 25 mins |
Release | |
Original network |
BBC Radio 4 BBC Two |
Original release |
Original Series: 12 January 1998 – 19 February 2001 Revived Specials: 26 May 2014 – 25 August 2015 |
External links | |
Website |
Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC English-language sketch comedy show originally aired on BBC Radio 4 from 1996 to 1998 and later televised on BBC Two from 1998 to 2001. The ensemble cast were four British Indian actors, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia. The show explored the conflict and integration between traditional Indian culture and modern British life. Some sketches reversed the roles to view the British from an Indian perspective, and others poked fun at Indian stereotypes. In the television series most of the white characters were played by Dave Lamb and Fiona Allen; in the radio series those parts were played by the cast themselves.
The show's title and theme tune is a bhangra rearrangement of a hit comedy song of the same name. The original was performed by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren reprising their characters from the 1960 film The Millionairess. The show's original working title was "Peter Sellers is Dead", but was changed because the cast generally liked Peter Sellers. In her 1996 novel Anita and Me, Syal had referred to British parodies of Asian speech as "a goodness-gracious-me accent".
The cast casually drop Punjabi and Hindi slang phrases into their speech, in the manner of many British Asians living in the UK.
The show won Best Entertainment at the Broadcasting Press Guild Award and the Team Award from the Royal Television Society, UK in 1999.