British actor, comedian and television presenter Sanjeev Bhaskar began his career in the 1990s and acted in the TV series ‘The Real McCoy' (1991), 'Porkpie' (1995, 1 episode), ‘Captain Butler’ (1997, 6 episodes), ‘We Know Where You Live’ (1997, 12 episodes), ‘Keeping Mum’ (1998, 2 episodes) and ‘Jonathan Creek’ (1998, 1 episode). He also hosted the game show ‘Bollywood or Bust’ in 1996. His film credits of the decade include the short film ‘The Dance of Shiva’ (1998, role: Sgt. Bakshi) and the romance comedy ‘Notting Hill’ (1999, role: Loud Man in Restaurant). However, the show that really made him a household name was the BBC sketch series ‘Goodness Gracious Me’. Sanjeev Bhaskar and musician Nitin Sawhney used to perform a musical comedy double act called The Secret Asians and one of their shows at the Oval House theatre in South London impressed BBC executive so much that they were offered a radio show. The show aired on BBC Radio 4 from 1996 to 1998 and later transferred to BBC Two where it aired from 1998 to 2000.
From 1999 to 2001, he played the role of Rick Roy in Channel 4’s comedy sitcom ‘Small Potatoes’ (13 episodes) and in 2001 began playing the lead role of Sanjeev Kumar/chat show host in the sitcom cum chat show ‘The Kumars at No. 42’. The latter show ran for 7 series (53 episodes) till 2006 and won awards at the ‘British Comedy Awards’, ‘Peabody Awards’ ‘International Emmy Awards’ and ‘Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival’. Sanjeev Bhaskar, himself, won a nomination at the ‘BAFTA Awards’ for Best Entertainment Performance. He also turned writer for few episodes of the show. In 2014, the show was revived for a 6-episode series which was simply titled ‘The Kumars’. Sanjeev Bhaskar reprised his role in the series and wrote and produced it too. In 2007, he appeared as himself in BBC’s four-part documentary miniseries ‘India with Sanjeev Bhaskar'. The show was a part of series of programmes created by BBC to mark the 60th anniversary of India and Pakistan’s independence. He also authored a book (with the same name) based on the documentary series which went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller. In 2007-2008, he played the role of Kenny Gupta in 8 episodes of British-Indian comedy series ‘Mumbai Calling’. He worked as a writer for this series too and even turned director for one episode. Before this, as a director, he had worked in an episode of the TV miniseries documentary ‘Wild Battlefields’ (2004). He narrated the episode too.
Sanjeev Bhaskar’s other television credits of the decade include an episode each of television series ‘Dalziel and Pascoe’ (2002), ‘Top of the Pops’ (2003) and ‘Love Soup’ (2008) as well as 3 episodes of miniseries ‘Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee’ (2005). In addition, he became a part of various TV movies like ‘The Way It Is’ (2000), ‘We Know Where You Live. Live!’ (2001), ‘Dick Whittington’ (2002), ‘Chopratown’ (2005) and ‘Angell's Hell’ (2005). He narrated the TV series documentary ‘Omnibus’, the TV movie documentary ‘Sikh Street’ (both in 2002) as well as the TV miniseries documentary ‘Jewish Law’ (2004) and the TV series documentary ‘Natural World’ (2009).
On big screen, he acted in movies like ‘The Mystic Masseur’ (2001, role: Beharry), ‘The Guru’ (2002, role: Rasphal, the Cook), ‘Anita & Me’ (2002, role: Papa Kumar), ‘L'entente cordiale’ (2006, role: Commandant Bashir), ‘Scoop’ (2006, role: Poker Players) and ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’ (2007, role: shopkeeper). Amongst these, the comedy drama ‘Anita & Me’ received mixed reviews from critics and has a Rotten Tomato score of 71%.
Sanjeev Bhaskar continued to act in films and television and was next seen in movies like ‘It's a Wonderful Afterlife’ (2010, role: Mr Bhatti the Curry Man), ‘Not the Messiah: He's a Very Naughty Boy’ (2010, role: Mountie), ‘London Boulevard’ (2010, role: Dr. Raju), ‘The Zero Theorem’ (2013, role: Doctor), ‘Absolutely Anything’ (2015, role: Ray), ‘Paddington 2’ (2017, role: Dr Jafri), ‘Yesterday’ (2019, role: Jed Malik) and ‘Horrible Histories: The Movie - Rotten Romans’ (2019, role: Mr. Felix). The live-action animated comedy film ‘Paddington 2’ wherein he had a supporting role, received critical acclaim and has a Rotten Tomato score of 99%. It was a commercial success too. The romantic comedy film ‘Yesterday’, wherein he was once again in a supporting role, received positive reviews from critics and earned $154.6 million against the budget of $26–41.3 million. It also won him the best supporting actor nomination at the ‘National Film Awards, UK’.
Apart from these, he also acted in a short film ‘Lazy Uncle’ (2011, role: Dad, also wrote and directed it) and lent his voice in movies like ‘Jackboots on Whitehall’ (2010, role: Rupee/Old Gil/King), ‘The Itch of the Golden Nit’ (2011, role: Ten Heart Hero), ‘Arthur Christmas’ (2011, role: Lead Elf) and ‘Dragon Rider’ (2020, role: Mad Doc).
On television, from 2010 to 2013, Sanjeev Bhaskar was seen in the starring role of Dr Prem Sharma in 15 episodes of BBC’s period comedy drama series ‘The Indian Doctor’. Thereafter, he was roped in to portray the lead role of DI Sunil Sunny Khan in the British crime drama television series ‘Unforgotten’. The show first premiered in 2015 and has since then aired 4 series till 2021. It received critical acclaim and has a Rotten Tomato score of 91%. It won nominations in various categories at several award shows with Sanjeev Bhaskar winning nominations at the ‘Broadcasting Press Guild Awards’ for Best Actor and ‘TV Times Awards’ for Favourite Actor. In 2017, he was seen in 9 episodes of short comedy TV series ‘Election Spy’. From 2017 to 2019, he played the role of Mr. Pradeep in 7 episodes of the comedy sitcom ‘Porters’ and in 2020 was seen portraying the part of Les Vegas in the television miniseries ‘Sandylands’. Apart from these, he acted in a single episode each of TV series ‘Grandpa in My Pocket’ (2010), ‘Outnumbered’ (2012), ‘Doctor Who’ (2014), ‘Indian Summers’ (2015), Good Omens (2019), ‘Hitmen’ (2021) and ‘The Sandman’ (2022) as well as two episodes each of TV series ‘Little Crackers’ (2010-2011, writer and director for 1 episode), ‘Silent Witness’ (2012), ‘Inspector Lewis’ (2013) and ‘Horrible Histories’ (2015-2017).
Additionally, Sanjeev Bhaskar did voiceovers for the children's television series ‘Thomas & Friends’ (2018-2019), animated family comedy series ‘Treasure Champs’ (2018-2019) and the animated comedy adventure series ‘Hilda’ (2020). He also turned narrator for the TV series documentary ‘Secrets of the Transport Museum’ (2021-2022) and presented the TV movie documentary ‘Bollywood and Beyond: A Century of Indian Cinema’ (2015).
