Game for a laugh
Still Game legend vows to go out in character
STILL Game star Sanjeev Kohli says he is so tied up with his alter-ego Navid the shopkeeper, he wants to be buried dressed in the trademark beard and jumper.
That would be a bit weird. But it’s dead funny...
STILL Game actor Sanjeev Kohli says he loves his character of Navid Harid so much that he wants to be buried as the shopkeeper.
Sanjeev has played the acerbic Craiglang shop owner since the series began in 2002 and his unrequited love affair with cleaner Isa has kept viewers glued to their screens ever since.
As the ninth and final series prepares to be aired from February 24 on the new BBC Scotland Channel, Sanjeev said: “I joke about it but as every year passes I’m slightly more serious about it.
“I might be buried as Navid because it’s been so good to me that I think I might get buried dressed as Navid.
“People will be able to throw sweeties on to my coffin.”
Sanjeev filmed his final scenes for the series in September and posted a picture of the beard and wig that helped make him famous, with the message: “You were mad itchy but it was a pleasure to wear you.”
Sanjeev, who also appears in the hit film Stan and Ollie as manager of the Glasgow Empire, admits it still hasn’t properly hit him that Navid’s character will be no more.
He said: “I don’t know when it will hit me because when we stopped it the first time we were off air officially for six years but it never went away and people still watched it.
“The only thing that stopped happening was that we stopped making it. But it never stopped being a thing or presence in people’s lives.
“Last Halloween, there were five-yearolds going out as Jack and Victor and Navid and Bobby and Isa and you think you weren’t even born when we stopped making it, let alone started making it.
“So it’s clearly one of those things that’s going to be in people’s hearts. What it means is that it doesn’t stop being a presence.”
He’s now looking forward to a year of acting work as he films for River City and prepares for the Still Game Live Final Farewell show at the SSE Hydro from September to October.
He said: “We filmed the last Still Game for the telly and that will be going out for the new BBC Scotland channel on February 24 and I’m back in River City filming wise mid-February.
“I’m never off River City because it’s on all year then we’ve got the Still Game live show in autumn.
“Beyond that, I’m hoping to get my Radio Four comedy Fags, Mags and Bags recommissioned.”