Comedian Paul Chowdhry has opened up to Gaby Roslin in a new podcast interview to be released on May 2.
Roslin asked Chowdhry about his experience of racism when he was younger “We didn’t even consider it disgusting, it was normality. So the way you would look at it now, or you looking back at it, thinking ah that’s terrible, but to us, or ethnic minority groups in England in the 80s and the 70s and even the 90s to a degree, and to some extent now, but not as much, because it’s not as blatant. It was normal to get spat on, get racial abuse, people shout out racial slurs at you, there would be attacks, we’d just get on with it. But now it would be headline news, it would be trending on Twitter, but it was normal then.”
He went on to talk about the attitudes he faced “A lot of people didn’t want immigration and diversity in England at the time, and they still don’t, but back then it was much more open and accepted that you either want them here or you don’t want them here and if you didn’t want them here you’d tell them in the street, you’d tell them to their faces, you wouldn’t go to the politicians, you’d actually go to the source.”
Gaby asked Paul about his father’s experience with racism when he first moved to the UK “He took quite a few stitches to the face, there was a knife attack, the people were never caught. But he got on with it, he never held grudges. I’ve been attacked, lots of stuff has happened to me, but you can’t let it affect you, you know it’s a part of human nature, some of the darker sides.”
Paul spoke about how the debate on James Bond’s colour is one that interests him “When they discuss why is there no black James Bond for instance, I always find that quite an interesting topic of discussion when it comes up, because then it’s like why are we only talking about a black James Bond, what about all the other different sectors of society James Bond, it’s almost as if there’s two races and that’s what we are going to talk about and they think they are tackling some kind of cause but they’re not they’re just saying why is there no black or white James Bond. It’s great the strides the black community have made, I think it’s incredible and they’re very out-spoken within their communities when injustice is done, if other races were as open about it there would probably be more progress.”
Season One episodes are all available to listen to, including guests such as Dame Judi Dench & Finty Williams, Robbie Williams, David & Georgia Tennant, Sir Michael Palin, Fearne Cotton, Russell T Davies, Rob Brydon, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Luke Evans, Kate Winslet and Line of Duty special Adrian Dunbar, Vicky McClure & Martin Compston.
Season Two’s guests include, Alicia Silverstone, Anastacia, Cynthia Erivo, Vicky Pattinson, Mark Strong and Suranne Jones.
‘THAT GABY ROSLIN PODCAST’. PAUL CHOWDHRY Episode Releasing Monday 2nd May. Available on all podcast streaming platforms.
