Hardeep Singh Kohli

After graduating from university Kohli joined the BBC Scotland graduate production trainee scheme.[5] He later worked in BBC Television Centre, London, directing children's TV, before moving to Youth and Entertainment Features in Manchester to become a series director on Janet Street-Porter's series Reportage. He was a director of It'll Never Work, which was the first children's TV show to win an award from the Royal Television Society and BAFTA in its first season.

Kohli left the corporation in 1996 to work independently.[6] He directed commercials and worked in TV development and broadcast occasionally on BBC Radio 5Live.

He wrote, directed and starred in Channel 4's Meet the Magoons in 2004. The critical response was lukewarm and it failed to find an audience. Thomas Sutcliffe said the first episode "went beyond desperate and started to sound as if the comedy was actually pleading for its life". He observed that "Kohli didn't have much to offer in the way of Indian flavour besides a ready-meal approach to comic insult." The kinder reviewers listed here[7] include Nancy Banks Smith who wrote it was "modern to the point of surreal"[8] with A. A. Gill put forward a hope that it might "evolve into something classic"[9] The show was entered for a Rose at the Montreux Comedy Festival but did not make the final list

In September 2006, Kohli took part in the first series of BBC One's Celebrity MasterChef programme, reaching the final along with Roger Black, finishing second to the ultimate winner, Matt Dawson. In January 2007, he had a three-part series on Channel 4, £50 Says You'll Watch This. The series was the first documentary exploring all forms of gambling. The show involved Kohli taking part in a celebrity card game, visiting casinos in Las Vegas. In October 2006, February 2007 and January 2009 he appeared on the BBC political panel programme Question Time, and was an occasional presenter on Newsnight Review, Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4 and Loose Ends.

In 2008 Kohli presented "New British Kitchen" a cookery series for UKTV with John Torode. That was followed by Kohli's solo show "Chefs and the City" for the same channel. He also appeared on Gordon Ramsay: Cook Along Live. He also participated in a celebrity edition of The Apprentice to raise money for charity.[10] Sport Relief Does The Apprentice was part of the BBC's annual charity initiative Sport Relief and aired on 12 and 14 March 2008. He was the first Celebrity Apprentice to be "fired".

He appeared in the Scottish segment of the BBC's 2008 Children in Need appeal, anchored by Jackie Bird and Des Clarke.

Also in 2008, Kohli filmed a documentary about Scientology, mainly the so-called Free Zone, titled The Beginner's Guide to L. Ron Hubbard. Kohli presented a documentary In Search of the Tartan Turban, which explored cultural identity as a Briton and a Scot belonging to an ethnic minority. The show won a Schools BAFTA. Channel 4 commissioning a five part series called "Hardeep Does..." that covered a variety of topical issues including sex, religion and pets.[11] It was not renewed.

Kohli was the presenter of the second series of CBBC game show Get 100. In June 2009, he was one of five volunteers who took part in a BBC series of three programmes Famous, Rich and Homeless about living penniless on the streets of London.[12]

Kohli has appeared as a panellist on The Wright Stuff on Channel Five. He occasionally hosted the programme when Matthew Wright (the host presenter) was on holiday or ill.[13]

Kohli was a reporter for The One Show, but suspended in 2009 for six months amidst allegations of sexual harassment of a researcher. His contract was never renewed.[14]

On 16 August 2018, Kohli entered the UK television show, Celebrity Big Brother as a celebrity housemate. Kohli was nominated four times for eviction while in the Celebrity Big Brother house, before he was finally eliminated on 7 September 2018. Kohli became the fifth housemate to be evicted.

Kohli wrote and presented BBC Radio 4's "Hippy Trail" described by the Telegraph's Gillian Reynolds as "he patently had no real interest in the European and American hippies who trekked overland to India in the 1960s. At times, he seemed positively contemptuous, as if he were wondering why he was bothering"[15] He also presented BBC Radio 4 commissions, "Where Scotland Meets England" and "Where England Meets Wales".

In 2010 Radio 2 broadcast "Great British Faith", a city based series looking at the spiritual life and history of six British cities. Described as "terrific" by Kohli's friend Elisabeth Mahoney in The Guardian she was "impressed by the depth and scope of their portraits. Kohli brought to the programmes a real sense of the spiritual textures of these urban landscapes."[16]

Under producer Adam Fowler, he presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary 'The Loneliness of the Goalkeeper' won a prize in Illinois in 2010 as Third Coast Directors' Choice Award for Ladbroke Productions.[17]

In 2011 Kohli presented a series about words and language "15 by 15" which took a Silver at the New York Radio Festival.[18]

In 2012 Kohli recorded his first series of Hardeep’s Sunday Lunch, a programme that explores people's lives while Kohli cooks lunch. The sixth series was broadcast in the autumn of 2017 and early 2018.

In August 2013, Kohli presented his third edition of The Food Programme on Radio 4 "Ode to a Bacon Roll", about his fondness for bacon.

From 2007 to 2009 Kohli wrote Hardeep is your Love, a column for Scotland on Sunday,[19] He was twice put forward but unplaced as Columnist of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.

Kohli occasionally writes for The Guardian, The Observer, GQ magazine, Metro, The Spectator and The Independent. As a feature writer for High Life Magazine for British Airways, he was nominated but unplaced in 2014 for the AITO Travel Writer of the Year.

From mid-2014 until the end of 2015 Kohli was the food writer at the Daily Record and wrote a short column for the Sunday Herald.

Kohli was co-founder of the Byline Festival of independent journalism.[20]

Hardeep Singh Kohli performing at Isle of Arts 2012, in Ventnor, Isle of Wight.

At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe In August 2009 Kohli performed his debut one-man show, The Nearly Naked Chef, the first live curry cooking comedy show ever.[21]

This was followed by two years of "Chat Masala" where Kohli interviewed famous folk while cooking them a curry.

"Indian Takeaway" was the 2012 show where Kohli phoned in a takeaway while cooking his own version letting the audience decide the winner.

2013 he did a short run of new material which became "Hardeep is Your Love" in 2014. The following year was "Bigmouth Strikes Again". In 2016 his love of music was the inspiration for "Mixtape: My Life Through Music". "The show needed more joke content, structure and general fleshing out to be complete. Perhaps if he could get through more than just three songs, that might help," said BroadwayBaby.[22]

The 2017 show, "Alternative, Fact" is all about the world of politics.

Kohli wrote a book about food and travel in India, Indian Takeaway (2008), described by The Guardian as 'likeable but clumsy'.[23] Also in 2008, Kohli was a judge for the Man Booker Prize.[24]

Hardeep was a board member of the National Theatre of Scotland.[25] In 2017 Kohli became a Fellow of Royal Society of Arts, and Creative Director at the Innovation Academy[26]

Hardeep hosted the Brit Asia TV Music Awards on its debut in 2010[27] and on the following events in 2011[28] and 2012.[29]

Kohli wrote and spoke in support of the campaign for a "Yes" vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, appearing at the rallies for Scottish independence on 22 September 2012 and on 21 September 2013 in Edinburgh.[35]

Kohli returned to Scotland prior to the referendum in order to take a prominent role in the Yes Scotland campaign. Kohli joined the Scottish National Party in November 2014, following the "Yes" campaign's defeat at the independence referendum.