"Kiss My Chuddies!"

Goodness Gracious Me stars Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir and Nina Wadia.The show has run for three series on BBC 2, and is acclaimed, rightly or wrongly, as heralding a new wave of Asian comedy on our screens. Undoubtedly their most famous sketch is 'Going for an English,' Indian yobs abusing the waiter in an English restaurant in Bombay, and ordering 'the blandest meal on the menu.' The GGM characters include Smeeta Smitten - showbiz kitten, the overly English Kapoors, (pronounced Coopers) and the Bhangramuffins - Asian rastas!

• Meera Syal has the highest profile of the quartet; she was already a succesful novelist and actress before the series. Her novel 'Anita and Me' won the Betty Trask prize.

GGM won the Best Comedy Award 1998, with audiences of over 4 million, 80% of whom were white, and Syal was awarded the MBE in 1997.

Talking about the future of the Goodness Gracious Me team, Syal says: "The real test will be what happens to us afterwards. Will we be plucked out like the Not the Nine O'Clock News team, who were all given stuff to do individually, or will it be like: 'Oh, they were in that Asian show once.'" - Gareth Rubin,

I write as a bishop who did see the Asian comedy show Goodness Gracious Me last week, which came under fire at the general synod in the debate on the BBC While I was uneasy about the sketch on the holy communion, I did feel this programme brilliantly exposed, in a reverse way, the institutional racism in the police and in the Church of England. - Rt Revd Roger Sainsbury