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Fags, Mags and Bags
Fags, Mags and Bags is a Scottish radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Its first series was nominated for a Sony Radio Award. The writers, Sanjeev Kohli and Donald McLeary, received a Writers Guild Award in November 2008 for Radio Comedy of the Year.[1] The theme music for the show is "Smiling" by the Beta Band. In September 2017 the producer Gus Beattie revealed the list of other tracks considered for the theme, which included songs by The Go! Team, The Fratellis and The Breeders, among many others.[2] On 4 October 2013 it was announced on the Official Facebook page that the episode "Meter Reading Chic" would be the final episode of the show.[3] On 4 January 2016 however, it was announced that following a hiatus of three years the show would be returning for a sixth series, that was recorded in February and broadcast in April of that year.[4] A seventh series was announced in June 2017 consisting of 4 episodes, broadcast in August and September 2017.[5] Since then, it has been recommissioned for four more series, which were broadcast in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 respectively. Cast
Recurring guest cast:
CharactersRamesh Majhu Ramesh is a middle-aged shopkeeper, born in India but a long-term resident of the Glasgow suburb of Lenzie. He has been the proprietor of the local convenience store Fags, Mags & Bags for over 30 years. In the episode 'Evil Narbara' from series four, Ramesh reveals that he opened the store on the same day the Double Decker chocolate bar was launched. This would place the opening of Fags, Mags & Bags in 1976. Ramesh pursues his chosen career in low-return retail with a near religious zeal, possessing an encyclopaedic knowledge of product lines and a deft line in banter, seeing his shop as a microcosm of life. Twenty years hard "shop" has earned Ramesh a tan Mercedes and a pair of mushroom-coloured tasselled loafers. Despite a ceaseless quest for the secondary purchase, and organising a fictional festival solely to boost sales, Ramesh seems to genuinely have his customers' interests at heart. He is popular with fellow shopkeepers; chairing the local Traders' Association, and also won the coveted 'Shopkeeper of the Year Award' in the Small-to-Medium Retail Concern category in Series 2. Ramesh is a widower, having married his wife in an arranged marriage during the 1960s. By the end of series 5 Ramesh had begun a relationship with a lady called Malcolm. This initially progresses slowly due to Ramesh's nerves and unwillingness to commit following his wife's death, but they eventually become engaged and then married in series 9. It is revealed that he has no sense of smell, and is a fan of the TV show Lost. Ramesh also experimented with a perm at one point in homage to the tennis star John McEnroe. Dave Legg Dave is Ramesh's best friend and assistant at Fags, Mags & Bags. An amiable man in his forties, he has worked for Ramesh for many years and shares his enthusiasm for all things "shop" and the music of Barbara Dickson. Despite his easy-going nature, Dave is periodically beset by anxieties about his job and status; suffering a full scale breakdown, brought on by Ramesh's mother-in-law. It was also revealed early on that despite his skill in the art of shopkeeping, he is unable to mind the store on his own; for reasons as yet undisclosed. He appears to be a widower, like Ramesh, as he made a reference to his wife's death certificate in the series 4 episode "Foam Wizards". He seems to have had children, as he mentions receiving Father's Day gifts in "The Festival of Maltodextrin", but they are never hinted at again. Dave briefly dated a pet psychologist named Kate during the second series, and almost began a relationship with a man named Leslie in series 7, having believed he was a woman (Lesley) when they met online. Dave and Leslie forged a genuine bond, but advice from Ramesh made Dave realise he was inadvertently leading Leslie on, as he could never have romantic feelings for him. Dave has a talent for creating compound words, and also attempted to popularise the catchphrase Five Alive with limited success. Alok Majhu Ramesh's elder son sees himself as a forward thinking entrepreneur and tends to conduct conversations in marketing jargon. Alok views his father's low-return empire with disdain and is engaged in an ongoing and futile attempt to drag his father's shop upmarket. Alok has a vastly over inflated sense of his abilities as a businessman and his ventures such as the Lembit Opik Pita Heater invariably meet with disaster. This was particularly apparent in the episode "The Wrath Of Khan" when Alok's decision to install a Slush Machine led to a full scale retail war with the cafe at the Lenzie Leisuredome. This unwillingness to master the day to day realities of running a suburban confectioners causes Ramesh amusement and despair in equal measure, and he is unwilling to leave Alok in charge of the shop for prolonged periods; for example, whilst he goes away on a murder mystery weekend with fellow shopkeepers. Ramesh's refusal to allow him to take a more active role in the business is equally frustrating for Alok, to the point that, at one stage, he becomes engaged to a highly unpleasant woman called Sadiqa, purely to in the hope of taking over her father's shop empire, Pennywise. He also briefly goes into business with Ramesh's estranged brother running stag parties, but this collapses when he is discovered to be on the run from significant debts. Sanjay Majhu Ramesh's youngest son is in his late teens when the show begins, and shares his brother's disdain for the world of low-return retail. However, unlike Alok, this is due to teenage apathy and general surliness rather than a desire to pursue a high flying business career. Sanjay litters his conversation with SMS language and contemporary slang and treats customers with scarcely disguised indifference. He also follows fashion and cultural fads to an extreme degree, dismissing anything he believes is no longer a hot trend as "hashtag pure granny-fied". He is described by Alok as looking like "the Cookie Monster's mum". Despite this, Sanjay displays some flair for shopkeeping in "The De-Magowaning of Ramesh" where he successfully sells several secondary purchases. Sanjay also manages to show an aptitude for tabloid style reporting during work experience at a local newspaper, but with characteristic lack of tact manages to alienate Ramesh's customers and fellow shopkeepers by printing scurrilous stories about them. For many years, Sanjay claims to be undertaking various college courses, having apparently dropped out of several before starting a new one. However, in the episode "A Song for Lenzie", it is revealed Sanjay has never attended any of these courses, and has actually spent his time busking in an attempt to develop a music career. This leads to Ramesh briefly throwing him out, before the two reconcile after Sanjay pens a competition-winning hymn, "God is in Your Handbag", for Songs of Praise. In early episodes, Sanjay shows an interest in girls and briefly has a girlfriend, but in later episodes it is heavily implied that he has romantic feelings for his male best friend, Grebo. In the final episode of series 10, Sanjay confesses his love to Grebo and the two begin dating. However, in the opening episode of series 11, they break up, having struggled to make the transition from friendship to relationship - and because Grebo has been paying to watch explicit videos of someone called "Backshop Boy" on OnlyFans (who is actually Alok, although Sanjay fails to realise this). Malcolm First appearing in the final episode of series four, Malcolm becomes Ramesh's girlfriend, and later his fiancée, and eventually his wife in series 10. They first meet when she supplies Ramesh with greeting cards, specialising in non-landmark birthdays. Malcolm is a kindly woman who takes on many other projects during the series, including a food bank, foster caring and counselling. Ramesh is initially more reticent to get serious than Malcolm, struggling with guilt over moving on from his late wife, but things progress when he becomes jealous of Malcolm's interest in Lenzie's new butcher, Nathan Lazer (unaware that Nathan is actually gay). Alok and especially Sanjay are initially unhappy about their father's relationship with Malcolm, but eventually come to at least tolerate her. Malcolm has something of a verbal tic where she will only use half a phrase or expression; for example, describing herself as "Happy as" or "Excited as", or dismissing an insult as "Water off" [a duck's back]. Her traditionally masculine name, often commented on, is apparently the result of her parents having wanted a boy and having already purchased items emblazoned with the name Malcolm. When she and Ramesh are planning their wedding, she allocates a seat at the top table to her brother, Barbara. EpisodesSeries 1 (2007)
Series 2 (2008)
Series 3 (2010)
Series 4 (2011)
Series 5 (2012)
Series 6 (2016)
Series 7 (2017)
Series 8 (2018)
Series 9 (2020)
Series 10 (2022)
Series 11 (2024)
Guest appearancesThe show has featured guest stars in a number of episodes:
Live showsOn 13 March 2013 the official Facebook page for the series announced a live show was to be performed towards the end of April 2013. On 9 April it was confirmed to be taking place on Tuesday 30 April 2013 at Oran Mor, in Glasgow. The two episodes that were performed, as live readings, were "Hovering Chops" and "Meter Reading Chic", both from series 5. The readings contained extra material that had been cut from the radio versions. Stewart Cairns took on the role of Frank Butcher in "Hovering Chops", that had originally been played by Barry Howard. In August 2017, Sanjeev and Donald stated in an interview that they were in the early stages of planning a touring live show.[7] On 23 April 2019 Sanjeev Kohli announced that a live show would be taking place throughout the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, again in the form of script readings.[8] The Fringe run was an adapted version of the episode "Meter Reading Chic", extended to run to an hour long performance. References
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