Adil Ray on Citizen Khan revival, staying on Good Morning Britain permanently and defending Meghan Markle-Stella Akinwumi-Entertainment – Metro

Welcome to Metro.co.uk‘s The Big Questions, where we ask, well, the big questions (and the smaller ones too), and this week, we’re diving deep with Adil Ray OBE.

The actor and presenter has been a regular face on Good Morning Britain since 2018 alongside Susanna Reid and Kate Garraway.

However, he is no stranger to the small screen as he also served as the executive producer on the hit BBC sitcom Citizen Khan – oh and he had a starring role too!

Adil’s weekday game show Lingo is back for a third season and the TV personality sat down with Metro.co.uk to discuss the current series, dealing with online trolling and a potential Citizen Khan reboot.

Lingo is back for a third series. What is it about the game show that you love so much?

Adil Ray is fronting the show for the third season (Picture: ITV)

I absolutely love doing it. I’ve been trying to work out why I love doing it, and I think it’s genuinely because of the contestants. It means a lot to them, they play such a big part in the show, and they bring loads of fun to it, and for them to go away winning some money, even if they don’t win a lot, is something for them.

I’m so lucky to be part of a show that is loved by so many.

When it first started there was a lot of “oh is this going to be good?” and then people realised “ooh I actually might be quite good at this.”

There’s a real thirst and desire for people to get on. We’ve got contestants that are a bit better than they were in the first series, and those people that are good at it aren’t necessarily people that are academics or good at English or great readers. It can be anybody.

Would you like to see any of your colleagues guest star on the celebrity edition of the show?

Adil reckons Kate would smash Celebrity Lingo (Picture: adilray/Instagram)

I think Kate would be interesting playing Lingo. She probably wouldn’t even get to answer, she loves to chat, so I’d worry she would run out of time.

I think Laura [Tobin] and Andi [Peters] went on the celeb version so that was fun for them.

Of course it’s Ben’s [Shephard] company Triple Brew… so I don’t think he’ll be allowed on.

Susanna would probably win lots of money, she’s super smart but I think Kate would be fun.

You’ve seen diversity and representation evolve during the course of your career, do you think we are progressing?

Adil has received five Royal Television Society Awards for his work (Picture: Getty)

I think there is, it certainly has increased. There are people like myself and Ranvir [Singh] at ITV.

You want to get to the position where it simply feels natural and I think that that takes time. Once you start to have diversity on TV it raises lots of other issues. Are the people in television being treated the same way as everybody else? Are their perspectives being appreciated?

These are really challenging times for writers and for broadcasters, and my slight worry in an era of more and more channels coming, the ratings game suddenly becomes more important for channels.

If you were to do a drama about a Black family right now, it’s needed, but the viewership of that might not be huge. So the challenge for broadcasters is to go “right, what is really important here, massive ratings or representation?”

So my company and people like me.. we can’t just stop and think “that’s it, diversities done,” the conversation continues.

We’ve seen a number of rotating male presenters on Good Morning Britain in the last two years, would you like to co- present permanently?

Adil has been part of the GMB family since 2018 (Picture: ITV)

I really like the different jobs that I do., whether that’s Lingo, acting or running the production company.

I think out of all of us, Susanna is the one that does more than everybody else and I absolutely adore her. I think she’s amazing, but Susanna by her own admission says she can’t do anything else.

That has become her job. If they were to turn around to me and offer me a permanent position… I would consider it, but it’ll be a really difficult decision because I would have to decide that then becomes my thing, so I don’t know what I would do.

I’m just grateful that they call me, give me some dates, and I can go and do them.

I think it’s not a bad thing because you’ve got myself, Richard, [Madeley] and Ed [Balls]. You’ve got people that love us, people that hate us. When you have that situation that makes for good TV, and we a;l have slightly different perspectives and different audiences.

The figures for GMB are incredible, it’s such an important time to be on a morning show and it looks like this format works for them.

You have defended Meghan Markle on several occasions, did you fear the backlash it would bring?

Adil has come to Meghan Markle’s defense on multiple occasions (Picture: REUTERS)

Often you’re in a debate, and my job is to counteract with the other point of view. Who’s not in the room or the studio? It’s usually a person of colour, and me as a person of colour, that is often my job is to represent those people as well.

When it comes to Meghan Markle and the racism/unconscious bias that she’s suffered, I can have a lot to say about that and some learned experiences that are important to share.

I will say whether you are standing up for people who are gay, the Jewish community, we’re standing up for all minorities, even the white working class who accuse me of ignoring them and fighting just one corner.

It’s about being truthful to power and holding those in power, whether that being the government, accountable. If we don’t do that then eventually all minorities suffer.

In terms of backlash, yes, that’s a sacrifice I have to accept. There are going to be people that don’t like what you say

I try to engage with them on Twitter, because my view is that when they say I’m a “racist’ or a “race-baiter,” I think well they haven’t really thought this through. They don’t know who I am, so sometimes I will engage with them.

Most of the time it doesn’t get anywhere, sometimes one turns around and says “oh okay you’re not so bad.”

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare has become the fastest- selling non-fiction book ever, have you read it yet?

‘I’m hopeful there could be a reconciliation one day’ (Picture: Getty)

I haven’t read the entire book.

I tweeted at the time that this feels like a cathartic thing for Harry, and a huge weight off his shoulders. Whether we agree or not, from his point of view it must have been cathartic.

The disappointing thing for me is that I love the Queen, and my mother loves the Queen. Prince William gave me my OBE. I’m not a royalist but I admire a lot of the family.

What I find really sad is that the future of the Royal Family will depend on the generation of Harry, Meghan, Kate [Middleton] and William. They need to modernise and what an opportunity that would have been with Harry and Meghan in that family.

I remember watching the wedding and thinking “this is such a moment for Britain.” The sad thing for me is the missed opportunity of what could’ve been and the fact that they can’t live here anymore, they have to live in America

I’m hopeful there could be a reconciliation one day.

We’re in the era of reboots, would you be open to a Citizen Khan revival?

Citizen Khan ran for five seasons (Picture: BBC)

We are in conversations now about bringing it back, probably the most serious at the moment. We’re having a think about how it would come back.

We need to reimagine it in some way, the characters are great, but we need to think about the format and the show, but I would absolutely love to.

You look back now and comedy is really hard, it’s one of the hardest genres to establish. We had something special with a Muslim family from Birmingham, so many people connected with it and travelled round the world.

In these times of division I think something like Citizen Khan is important, so watch this space.

Lingo airs on weekdays at 3pm on ITV and ITVX.

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