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Portrait of the artist: Sanjeev Bhaskar, actor and comedian

'I'd like to be in with a shot at playing Mr Darcy on the radio – but even there, I just get offered Asian characters'

What got you started?

A court case. In my 20s, when I was working in marketing, I sued the company I was working for for breach of contract, during which time I couldn't get work. So I got together with [musician] Nitin Sawhney; there was nothing out there reflecting our experience of being British and Asian, so we devised a show combining music and comedy. It all went from there.

What was your big breakthrough?

Goodness Gracious Me. It gave me the confidence to feel I had a voice.

Are British Asian actors too readily typecast?

Yes – there's a lack of imagination on the part of casting directors and producers. I can understand it when it's a period drama: if you're doing Jane Austen on TV, sticking a black or Asian face in there might be odd. But I find it strange in radio drama. I'd like to think I'd be in with a shot at playing Mr Darcy on the radio – but when I do get offered a radio part, it's always for an Asian character.

What one song would work as the soundtrack to your life?

The Waters of March by Susannah McCorkle. It reminds you that within life's joy and pain, there is beauty.

Is this a boom time for British theatre?

Not as much as it should be. The percentage of dross on TV has increased; there's very little that's radical or experimental. That's where theatre has always excelled – but it's not pulling in the audiences it deserves.

What advice would you give a young actor?

Before I started acting, I heard a radio interview with Richard Briers. He was asked that question and said: "If you really, really want to act, then don't." It mustn't be a desire, but a need: that is what sustains you in the lean periods.

Which other artists do you admire?

Alan Alda and his wife Arlene are two of the most life-affirming people I've ever met. He espoused equal rights for women while producing, writing, acting in and directing M*A*S*H; he used to commute between the set and home because he didn't want to disrupt his kids' schooling.

What work of art would you most like to own?

Monet's Water Lilies. It's like a Magic Eye painting.

Is there an art form you don't relate to?

Techno and thrash metal. They're both like being repeatedly hit on the head by an errant child with nothing to say.

In short

Born: Ealing, 1964.

Career: TV includes Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42. Theatre includes Spamalot and Joe Penhall's Dumb Show at the Rose, Kingston (0871 230 1552), until 17 April.

High point: "Meeting my heroes: Woody Allen, Hugh Jackman, Paul McCartney, Priscilla Presley."

Kenny Everett to return to TV as BBC announces plans for biopic

Film will focus on unhappy childhood of DJ and comedy performer who died in 1995

He created a character called Cupid Stunt and told a filthy joke about Margaret Thatcher on Radio 2. But now the late Kenny Everett is in line for the latest in showbusiness establishment accolades – a BBC4 drama biopic.

The BBC is developing a 90-minute film called Number One in Heaven about Everett, who died of an Aids related illness in 1995 aged 50.

Written by playwright Tim Whitnall – best known as the author of hit stage play Morecambe, about comedian Eric Morecambe – the as-yet uncast biopic promises to focus on Everett's troubled childhood at his Catholic secondary school on Merseyside where he was picked on for his diminutive size and his effeminacy.

"He was so small it is hard to think of finding an actor who can play him," Whitnall told the Guardian. "It is possible he could be played by a woman in fact, which is something he may have appreciated. I knew him and I loved him – in fact the title refers to the moment I first saw him when he was dancing in Heaven nightclub."

Everett, born Maurice Cole in Seaforth, Lancashire, started his professional life as a pirate DJ for Radio London and Radio Luxemburg before joining Radio 1 in the mid 1960s. He befriended the Beatles and accompanied them on their 1966 tour of the US.

His TV work included stints for Thames TV from 1978 to 1980 and for the BBC between 1981 and 1988, where he is thought to have first coined the term "the Beeb" to refer to the corporation. Among his comic creations were the punk Sid Snot and the American chatshow host Cupid Stunt, whose catchphrase was: "It's all done in the best possible taste."

Regarded in the 1980s as a supporter of prime minister Thatcher, Everett once appeared at a Young Conservatives conference waving enormous foam hands and saying "Let's bomb Russia" and "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away". However, friends of Everett now question whether he was in fact a supporter of the Conservatives.

The BBC confirmed that it is working on the film but declined to comment further. It is expected to be made by the BBC's in-house film department, where it will be overseen by BBC Films executive producer Jamie Laurenson.