"Actor: Sharat Sardana"

• Goodness Gracious Me - Complete Series 3 | DVD | (17/05/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Goodness Gracious Me was never quite a classic comedy series, but it did achieve the goal of all such sketch shows: to make at least a couple of its characters part of the popular discourse. The show's best creations were those that served to let the rest of Britain in on a few of the in-jokes in British/Asian life. The bitterly competitive immigrant mothers boasting about the achievements of their first-generation children, the over-compensating, more-British-than-the-British Kapoor family and the obstinately patriotic Mr Everything Came from India. The sketch in which the latter passionately argues that Leonardo da Vinci was, in fact, Indian is a particular joy. Fine though these ideas were, Goodness Gracious Me also carried its share of padding. Hapless Romeo Mr Check Please is a less funny and less charming reading of The Fast Show's "I'll get me coat", and the kindest that can be said musical sketches is that they're not quite as lame as the ones on Smack the Pony. On the DVD: Goodness Gracious Me, Series 3 offers the standard episode selector, a song selector to direct the viewer to the unfunny musical parody of their choice, augmented by a simple yet brilliant idea that should be mandatory for all sketch show DVDs: another selector which allows you to watch all the sketches from the series featuring one particular character. The DVD also contains an interview with cast member Nina Wadia. No subtitles are available. --Andrew Mueller

• Goodness Gracious Me - Complete Series 1 | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The complete first series of the superb sketch show! Sending up British culture Asian culture and everything in between is the team of Meera Syal Sanjeev Bhaskar Nina Wadia and Kulvinder Ghir bringing together a series of unforgettable characters in an irreverent look at our multi-cultural society. Among the many characters featured in the first series are the determinedly English Cooper family (spelt Kapoor) the streetwise Bhangramuffins Asian superhero Sanjeev Austin -

• Goodness Gracious Me - Complete Series 2 | DVD | (09/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The complete second series of the superb sketch show! Sending up British culture Asian culture and everything in between is the team of Meera Syal Sanjeev Bhaskar Nina Wadia and Kulvinder Ghir bringing together a series of unforgettable characters in an irreverent look at our multi-cultural society.