His story: Alan Alda, 79, actor
I’d seen a few episodes of The Kumars when I was invited to go on the show, and loved how inventive it was. Sanjeev’s character is so cheeky; he kept asking me how much money I had. It was effortlessly insulting, yet charming. Both Sanjeev and Meera (Syal, his wife) are extraordinary improvisers, writers and actors. I see them whenever I have a chance to go to London.
Sanjeev and I keep up a slightly wacky correspondence. We have these stream-of-consciousness emails, with dizzy associations and bizarre claims. He always addresses me with some kind of pun, like “My Dear Brighton Early” – “bright-and-early”, but spelt like the town. We understand each other, at least most of the time.
You have to be smart to be funny, and he is. He doesn’t set out to kill the audience; he has a connection with them. He knows exactly where his performance is landing on the people watching. I think he’s told me how much he admires my work, but I don’t tend to remember these things.
Sanjeev and I talk about the world – he has wide-ranging interests and so do I. We make each other laugh, but we also have conversations where we try to figure big things out, like humanity. We haven’t come to any conclusions yet.
I guess I’m old enough to be his father, but we’re just colleagues who share feelings and insights. Sanjeev and Meera came to Paris when I was there with my wife, Arlene. We had lunch and I gave them a chocolate Eiffel Tower for their son, Shaan, who now knows us as “the Eiffel Tower people”. He’s a lovely boy. I told Sanjeev to buy him another chocolate Eiffel Tower to remember us by, and Shaan joked that from his parents he expects nothing less than the actual Eiffel Tower.
His story: Sanjeev Bhaskar, 51, comedian
I’ve always been a huge M*A*S*H fan. It was the only programme to successfully marry drama and comedy in half an hour. It was also my introduction to Alan. On discovering we were getting him on The Kumars, in 2006, I was overwhelmed. I was so nervous when I met him, but he was utterly delightful.
We walked to his car after the show, and I asked him, “What next?” He said he was going to slow down a bit, as he was over 70. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve got a book out, you’re in The West Wing, The Aviator… can you define slowing down for me?” He laughed. We swapped email addresses, and have kept in touch.
Alan and Arlene are incredibly creative and compassionate. They wake up curious, with a question in their head and the drive to answer it. The first time he came round to ours for dinner, our son Shaan was about three. Alan had brought him these wind-up jumping animals and he sat with Shaan trying to make them jump at the same time. It was funny – Alan Alda, the multi-award winning legend, sitting cross-legged in my hallway.
I’ve always thought of British and American humour as very different, but Alan’s ranges from silly to satirical. He was on the board for the American version of That Was The Week That Was, so he kind of gets us. He used to make me laugh by sending my emails back to me with the jokes marked.
Alan is a constant inspiration. We’ll definitely stay in touch, unless he’s realises I’m just an idiot who keeps sending him emails. He’s going to say, “I don’t know who this guy is. I wish he’d stop bothering me.”
Unforgotten, starring Sanjeev Bhaskar, is on 23 September on ITV
