Goodness Gracious Me (TV series)

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 Asian actors, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia. The show explored British Asian culture, and the conflict and integration between traditional South Asian culture and modern British life. Some sketches reversed the roles to view the British from a South Asian perspective, and others poked fun at South Asian 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. Some of the white characters were also played by Amanda Holden and Emma Kennedy.
The show's title and theme tune is a bhangra rearrangement of the comedy song of the same name, originally performed by Peter Sellers (portraying an Indian doctor, Ahmed el Kabir) and Sophia Loren, reprising their characters from the 1960 film, "The Millionairess". Sellers sings the song in a stereotypical "cod-Indian" accent, acceptable as a comic device at the time but by the 1990s considered dated and belittling. Consequently, the show's original working title was "Peter Sellers is Dead"; this was changed as the cast admired Sellers' other work, as well as the fact that although Sellers' Indian doctor was a parody, the actor still portrayed him as a competent professional. (In her 1996 novel "Anita and Me", Syal had referred to British parodies of south 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.
In March 2014, the BBC announced that the show would return with a special episode as part of celebrations of fifty years of BBC Two. An India special was broadcast on BBC Two on 25 August 2015.
Parodies and references in the show.
Other parodies are based on shows such as "Animal Hospital" (where members of lower castes take the place of the pets) and "Rough Guides" (where tourists from India visit and make unpleasant remarks about England).
Going for an English.
One of the best known sketches featured the cast "going out for an English" after a few lassis. They continually mispronounce the waiter's name, order the blandest thing on the menu (apart from one of them, who opts for the stronger option of a steak and kidney pie) and ask for 24 plates of chips. The sketch parodies English people "going out for an Indian" after drinking heavily, being rude to the waiter, demanding the spiciest thing available on the menu for show and ordering far too many papadums. This sketch was voted the 6th Greatest Comedy Sketch on a Channel 4 list show.