Queen LOVES The Kumars at No.42, former journalist claims
The Queen once described The Kumars at No 42 as her favourite television programme and was even able to “recite some of the one-liners from the grandma character”, a former BBC journalist has said (Charlotte Wace writes).
It bolsters several reports over the years about the Queen being a fan of the sitcom, which is based on a British Indian family and was first broadcast in 2001.
The show is centred on Sanjeev Kumar, an aspiring chat show host who broadcasts from his home in Wembley while his relatives constantly interrupt.
Phil Jones, a former editor of The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2, described how he had kept the “exclusive story secret for 21 years” after a meeting with the Queen during a media function at Buckingham Palace in 2001.
Writing for The New Statesman, he explained that a BBC executive had told him that “on pain of death, journalists should never reveal their conversations with the monarch”.
But Jones went on anyway: “The first thing the Queen said was how much she loved Terry Wogan. No surprise there. We all knew the Queen was a Radio 2 listener.
“We chatted for ages, which I can tell you is rather surreal. My brain kept saying, ‘Bloody hell I’m talking to the Queen and I can’t think of a single thing to say!’
“In the end I alighted on, ‘What’s your favourite programme?’ Straight away, she said, ‘The Kumars at No 42’ and, even more astonishingly, proceeded to recite some of the one-liners from the grandma character, played by the brilliant Meera Syal.”
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