Still Game star Sanjeev Kohli: I went to Mass to try to fit in

But when we talk ostensibly about Kohli’s new BBC Scotland pop up radio show and his early musical influences, you soon realise the record which is his early life is rather scratchy.

“I was a really shy kid,” he recalls, revealing a wry smile. “For example, there weren’t any girls in our school until Primary Seven, and I remember when they arrived. We had mass in the morning and the girls, only fifteen out of ninety kids, were paraded in front of us like a random Miss Universe contest.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was already shy, having grown up in a house of boys. There were a couple who would deign to speak to me, probably because they thought I was asexual and non-threatening, but I couldn’t speak back and that continued all through secondary school. Perhaps there was this subconscious thing in my head if I spoke to a girl she would think I fancied her. That would sully the whole thing.”

He adds; “There are certain advantages to growing up in an Asian household, but also disadvantages. I couldn’t ask my dad for (relationship) advice. He met my mum off a photograph. He’d never been on a date, gone to the pictures with a girl.”

The Kohli family – his parents a teacher and a social worker - arrived in Scotland from London in 1974, seeing opportunity to progress. They settled in Glasgow, added shops and property to their interests and like many Asian parents sent their children to Catholic school. (Perceived to produce better results). But Sanjeev, the youngest of three boys, felt a fish out of water and not just because he was “brown.” He and his brothers were bussed from the North Glasgow suburb of Bishopbriggs to St Aloysius School in the city centre, where Sanjeev became a de facto Catholic. “I even went to extra mass to try and fit in.”

He did, but it wasn’t easy. Little things became big things. The youngest Kohli didn’t have the shared musical experience of his schoolmates. “Growing up in an Asian household you don’t have your mum and dads Beatles and Stones albums as reference. We had Sikh devotional songs and Bollywood hits. There’s nothing wrong with that, some of it is right funky, but it meant I had to find music on the radio. At ten years old my three favourite songs were the Police’s Message in a Bottle, The Jam’s Going Underground and Deep Purple’s Child In Time.”

School became something of a solitary existence. “There were guys I sort of chimed with, but I don’t think they liked me too much. They were into Dungeons and Dragons and I wasn’t so they would sort of disappear at lunch time.”

Kohli loved football. But his school didn’t. “Yes, it was a rugby school,” he says, the disdain in his voice loud and clear. “There was no school football team until Fifth Year. It’s part of stupid middle class Glasgow. I remember one boy in our school who was a brilliant footballer not being allowed time to play in a cup match. The school didn’t want us playing a working class game.”

Kohli says he didn’t have a voice at school although on one occasion it did emerge, offering a signal to future intent. “Back in Third Year we all had to write a speech, and deliver it before the class, which was terrifying but anyway, I wrote it on advertising. And I wrote this joke into the speech. But at the time I didn’t visualise anyone actually laughing. When it came to reading it aloud, I had to stop because of the laughter.”

Kohli had long been a comedy fan, having discovered the likes of Monty Python via Fawlty Towers, then Blackadder and the Young Ones. But he didn’t have a comedy soul mate at school. “Thankfully, my brothers shared my comedy passion as well.”

The brothers Kohli were a tight unit. Oldest brother Randeep would become a senior police officer in London while middle brother Hardeep is now a comedian. “They both looked after me in their own ways. But having said that, I was very low maintenance. I wasn’t a pain-in-the-a*** wee brother. In fact when I was at primary and they were at St Aloysius I made them a snack when they came home, with a side plate of digestive biscuits and an orange. Once I had a fight with Hardeep and a punch was thrown but we stopped straight away, knowing we’d crossed the line.”

The youngest Kohli still didn’t have a complete sense of self when it came time to take his clutch of Highers to Glasgow University, switching from Medicine to Mathematics. (Later gaining a First.) But the new world produced a metamorphosis. “I changed when I got to university,” he recalls, with delight in his voice. “For the first time I felt that people were listening to what I had to say.”

Including females. At 19, he met his first girlfriend and was now listening to soul and hip-hop and dance. And friends saw him as funny, which resulted in a phone call which changed his life. All set for a career as lecturer in accountancy former Glasgow university student Uzma Mir was now producing a new multicultural show for Radio Scotland.

“She thought of me because I was into comedy. I said ‘I’ll come and audition for you but it’s your funeral.’ And I did, and radio rescued me from a career as a mathematician.”

Kohli became a comedy writer, working for the likes of sketch comedy Chewin’ The Fat. Since then, he’s co-written Radio Four corner shop comedy success Fags, Mags and Bags. And acting work has increased. More recently he appeared on ITV drama Cold Feet. But was it not a little disappointing to be cast (again) as a shopkeeper?

“If Cold Feet come calling you answer,” he says, “but I get you. When I was offered Navid initially I was worried about taking on the role, the viewers thinking ‘Oh God, he’s playing a shopkeeper. But I looked at the way the boys (Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill) had written Navid I realised he is never the victim, in fact he’s the only person in the show who drives a Merc. And there was one scene in which Navid has to go to Jack and Victor’s flat and it was written, ‘Navid prowls like a lion.’ Ford explained that, saying, ‘Well, you’re Billy Big Bollocks. That’s what you would do.’ And he was right.”

Kohli, who has two girls and a boy with wife Fiona, would love to see more Asian actors represented on television. But not unconditionally. Goodness Gracious Me, (which he wrote for was a coming of age series. “It was like ‘Fly my beauties, fly.’ It could have been about a New York Jewish family, the comedy was clever and scientific. But then came Citizen Khan which I felt was a big backward step.” He adds; “Look, I wish it all the best, but it wasn’t for me. There are writers of colour who are telling much more interesting stories.”

He says he is hopeful his radio show Fags, Mags and Bags will become a live stage show sometime soon. He has another drama in development. And Kohli is going up for acting roles. “But not in the likes of Downton Abbey,” he says, smiling.

Sanjeev Kohli’s confidence has grown over the years, but not to the point where it inhibits self-awareness or denies reality. “Six years ago I did worry,” he admits. “It was a time when I thought I couldn’t get arrested. Still Game had finished and although I had my radio show, which I adore, it is just six shows a year. And because I don’t do stand-up I don’t have that sort of control over my career.”

He adds; “It’s not that I wanted to become a doctor or an accountant or a Maths lecturer, but for a wee while I did crave that sort of stability. I think what got me through that period was being a dad, just having to be there for the kids.”

When he speaks of River City he considers himself a trainee actor. “It was great for me to be able to learn that form of acting. I’ve come in via a very circuitous route, radio presenting, comedy writing and then Still Game. So you watch from the trained actors and see how they do it. And it was a great place to go work with the likes of Dawn Steele and Andy Gray and Frank Gallagher.

He adds; “I tried to raise my game although it’s up to the audience to decide if I have or not. On one scene I confronted Dawn (his wife, who was having an affair) and I had to cry. I thought I’d be using the tear stick because I’m not a trained actor but I didn’t have to.”

He adds, grinning; “But I sometimes watch myself and think ‘Christ, what’s that plank of wood doing on set?’”

• BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra is a pop-up digital service that will broadcast 24 hours a day until November 30. Sanjeev Kohli presents Drivetime, from 5-6.30pm.