Queen hands OBE to comic Bhaskar

Meera Syal said husband Sanjeev Baskhar had "done very well"

Comic actor Sanjeev Bhaskar has joked he will sell his OBE online after collecting the medal from the Queen.

The star of Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42 attended a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace, and was honoured for services to entertainment.

"As an Asian bloke, it's another thing I can stick on eBay," he said. "I'll do it tomorrow morning. You can look it up. I'll sign it, of course."

The 41-year-old said the Queen had told him to "keep making us laugh".

'Great for parents'

Bhaskar attended with his wife and fellow actor, Meera Syal, and his mother and father were also watching the investiture.

"I gave them a 'thumbs-up' when I went past in the midst of all this grandeur," he said.

Baskhar (far right) met stars on his chat show The Kumars at No 42

"It's great for my parents. They're of that generation that came over here with nothing. My ancestors would never have believed that their offspring would be at the Palace."

Bhaskar began writing monologues and sketches as a hobby while working as a marketing manager, before he began performing routines in comedy clubs.

Targeting stereotypes

A decade ago, he was spotted at a theatre workshop by two writers preparing scripts for a new radio comedy series, Goodness Gracious Me.

After running on BBC Radio 4, it became a successful TV series on BBC Two and was credited for the ground-breaking way in which it poked fun at racial stereotypes.

It became famous for a sketch in which a group of hungry young people of Indian origin joked about "going for an English".

The programme introduced Bhaskar to Syal, who would both go on to create and star in the humorous chat show The Kumars at No 42.