Sanjeev Bhaskar

Current Role

Comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar is to join the cast of award winning Monty Python musical Spamalot as King Arthur from the 23rd June 2008.
Sanjeev will be replacing Ugly Betty’s Alan Dale in the role, which, in the past has been played by Tim Curry, Simon Russell Beale and Peter Davison.

Early Life

Born on the 28th June 1968 Sanjeev spent much of his early life in Hounslow, West London. The racially intolerant climate of the area at the time influenced Sanjeev’s comedic style, which often relies on the satire and reversal of racial stereotypes.

Sanjeev’s career choice was not initially received well by his parents and so he completed a marketing degree largely to appease them. His big break came when he was discovered by talent scouts for BBC’s Goodness Gracious Me performing in a musical comedy act called “The secret Asians” with friend and Musician Nitin Sawhney.

Career Highlights

Sanjeev first found mainstream fame in BBC’s BAFTA nominated comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me (1998). His career quickly moved on and in 1999 he appeared in the golden globe winning film, Notting Hill.

The role for which Sanjeev may be best known is as presenter of The Kumars at number 42, a spoof celebrity chat show that enjoyed massive success, winning a British comedy award in 2002 for best new British comedy. Since then Sanjeev has appeared in a variety of films and television programmes including Top Gear (2003) and The Guru (2002)

Sanjeev’s comedy talents earned him a place on the 2006 New Year honours list for which he received an OBE. Sanjeev’s reaction to this honour was what we would expect of such a comedian, he immediately joked about selling the medal awarded to him by the Queen on eBay.

Interesting Facts

• Sanjeev has appeared on Parkinson on four separate occasions.
• Sanjeev holds 32nd place on the original top gear “star in a reasonably priced car” leader board.
• Sanjeev is only 5’ 6”
• Sanjeev once worked in marketing for IBM.