Shobna Gulati

Shobna Gulati DL (born 7 August 1966)[1] is an English actress and presenter. Gulati is known for her roles as Anita in Dinnerladies, Sunita Alahan in the soap opera Coronation Street from 2001 to 2006 and Farah Khurana in River City. From 2013 to 2014, Gulati appeared as a panellist on the lunchtime talk show Loose Women.

Shobna Gulati
Shobna Gulati in 2012
Born (1966-08-07) 7 August 1966
Oldham, Lancashire, England
Occupation
  • Actress
  • presenter
Years active1998–present
EmployerBBC (1998–2000, 2017–present)
ITV (2001–2014)
TelevisionDinnerladies
Coronation Street
Spouse(s)
Anshu Srivastava
​
​
(m. 1990; div. 1994)​
Children1

Early life
Shobna Gulati in 2007

Gulati was born in Oldham, Lancashire, to Hindu Indian parents. She grew up in the Salcombe area of Openshaw, Manchester, where the actress Sarah Lancashire was a friend. They remain friends.[2] She has a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern politics from the University of Manchester.[1]

Career

One of Gulati's earliest appearances was as a dancer in the video for Boy George's 1991 single "Bow Down Mister". In the late 1990s, she appeared in both series of Victoria Wood's BBC sitcom Dinnerladies. She appeared as Ameena Badawi from October to December 2000 in EastEnders. She appeared in Coronation Street as Sunita and in the same role in "East Street", a crossover between both soaps, as part of the 2010Children in Need 2010 telethon. In 2001, she appeared in the short film Shadowscan, directed by Tinge Krishnan, which won a Bafta Award and, in 2004, was nominated for a Manchester Evening News theatre award for her work in the play Dancing Within Walls, which was staged at the Contact Theatre in Manchester.

Gulati has also appeared on the TV quiz shows Call My Bluff, Have I Got News for You, The Weakest Link, Russian Roulette and as Diana Ross in Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes. In early 2006, Gulati took part in the Reality TV series Soapstar Superstar.

After Gulati left Coronation Street for the first time in 2006, she played Nisha Clayton, a recurring role in the final series of Where the Heart Is, and made appearances in New Street Law and the one-off comedy drama Magnolia, which was written by Dave Spikey for BBC's Comedy Playhouse series.

In October 2006, Gulati appeared at the Royal Albert Hall as part of a short skit featured in The Secret Policeman's Ball. In the sketch, Gulati and her co-star Nitin Ganatra play a holidaying couple who are under the mistaken belief Guantanamo Bay is a holiday resort. The sketch also starred the American actors Chevy Chase and Seth Green.

Gulati was one of the storytellers in a CBBC revival of Jackanory and in the UK tour of the hit play Girls Night by Louise Roche. She also appeared on the Channel 4 special Empire's Children, tracing her family's history during the partition of India. In summer 2007, she appeared in Pretend You Have Big Buildings at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.

In 2008, Gulati made her debut as a filmmaker, producing the short film Akshay for the motiroti's 60x60 Secs.[3] This was shortlisted for the Satyajit Ray short film awards. During this same period, she returned to her Coronation Street role as Sunita Alahan, where she stayed for three years.[4]

On 11 June 2009, Gulati appeared in the BBC1 programme Celebrity MasterChef. She did the first stage tour of Dinnerladies in early 2009 and she has appeared as a guest story teller for Bedtime Stories on CBBC. In November 2010, Gulati was a guest panellist on ITV's flagship daytime show Loose Women, to celebrate fifty years of Coronation Street and, in April 2012, to celebrate soap week. In June 2011, Gulati was a guest on Countdown. Announcing her departure from Coronation Street, she expressed her desire to write and perform more comedy than her work in a soap opera had permitted her time to do.[4] In 2016, she appeared in the ITV/Netflix series Paranoid. Gulati made a guest appearance in Casualty on 29 October 2016.

In 2017, she appeared as Saba in the British romantic comedy film Finding Fatimah.[5] Also in 2017, she joined the cast of River City where she plays Farah Khurana.

In 2018, Gulati appeared in the Doctor Who episodes "Arachnids in the UK" and "Demons of the Punjab" as Najia Khan, mother of Dr Who's companion Yasmin Khan.[6]

She played Ray in the West End production of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Apollo Theatre in 2018.[7] Now adapted as a screenplay, Gulati plays the part of Ray alongside Sarah Lancashire. Everybody's Talking About Jamie is due to be released in January 2021.

Remember Me?
Gulati wrote a memoir on losing a parent to dementia based on her experiences caring for her mother, who died in 2019.[8] During publicity interviews for the book, Gulati revealed that she had contracted Coronavirus earlier in 2020.[9]

Loose Women
Main article: Loose Women

Gulati made her Loose Women debut on 18 November 2010 to celebrate 50 years of Coronation Street, appearing with regulars Kate Thornton, Sherrie Hewson and Carol McGiffin. Gulati returned to the show on 11 April 2012 appearing alongside regulars Andrea McLean, Jane McDonald and Janet Street-Porter during soap week. Gulati returned to the show as a regular from 13 March 2013, taking over from Sally Lindsay who took time off to film Mount Pleasant, from September 2013, Gulati became an occasional panellist on the show, before leaving on 30 May 2014.

Personal life

Gulati is the daughter of K.A. Gulati who arrived in Oldham from Bombay, India, in 1960.[10] She has a younger brother, Rajesh, and two older sisters, Sushma and Hema.[10]

Gulati married the architect Anshu Srivastava in a Hindu ceremony on 10 November 1990 but they divorced in May 1994.[11] She lived separately from her husband and became pregnant with Akshay.[12][13] From 1999 to 2003, she was in a relationship with the ex-Emmerdale actor Gary Turner.[11]

Gulati has a working knowledge of six languages and is a vocal supporter of Asian women's rights and various anti-racism campaigns.[14] She works on female body image issues.[15] She is a supporter and a season ticket holder of Manchester United.[16]

In 2015, she was appointed as a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester. This gives Her the right to use the Post Nominal Letters "DL" for life.[17]

Shafilea Ahmed

Gulati was called in to join a murder hunt in December 2004 following the murder of Shafilea Ahmed. At a press conference appealing for more information about the teenager's death, Gulati read out some of the poems found in her bedroom by police during their investigations which "were a testimony to her sadness at being caught in a culture clash with other members of her family". After the reading, Gulati said that she believed they showed that Shafilea was trapped between two cultures. "It can be very difficult if you are born here but your parents were not and there can be a lot of cultural issues," she said. "It is a situation facing many young Asian women who are unable to express themselves properly within their families. I feel these words are the sort of style she would use when talking with her friends. If she is out there she should let people know she is safe because there are organisations and individuals who can help her."[18]

Gulati went on to say that she sympathised with the teenager's difficulty in balancing her culture with her upbringing. "She has obviously been unable to express herself in terms of her family and she probably talks like this to her friends, or has written these songs in private."[19]

Honours

Commonwealth honours
Commonwealth honours
Country Date Appointment Post-nominal letters
 United Kingdom9 March 2015 – presentDeputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester [20][17]DL

Scholastic
University degrees
Location Date University Degree
 England1988University of ManchesterBachelor of Arts (BA) in Arabic and Middle Eastern politics[21]
Honorary degrees
Location Date University Degree
 England2006University of HuddersfieldDoctor of Letters (D.Litt)[22]
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

References
  1. www.shobnagulati.co.uk, Shobna Gulati official website
  2. ITV GMB Lorraine, 15 September 2020 interview.
  3. "60x60 Secs website". Archived from the original on 26 August 2008. Retrieved 15 August 2008.
  4. "Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati to quit soap". BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat. 31 October 2012.
  5. "Finding Fatimah official website". Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  6. Jeffery, Morgan (23 October 2018). "Shobna Gulati on playing Yaz's mum and facing down spiders in Doctor Who: "I'm an arachnophobe!"". Digital Spy.
  7. "Shobna Gulati joins cast of Everybody's Talking About Jamie". What's On Stage. 20 April 2018.
  8. ITV GMB Lorraine interview, 15 September 2020.
  9. "Shobna Gulati: 'I've played the Queen, Thatcher and the Virgin Mary – on radio'". The Guardian. 16 September 2020.
    - "Coronation Street's Shobna Gulati details 'terrible' Covid-19 battle as she says her body 'gave up'". OK!.
  10. Fletcher, Rebecca (19 January 2002). "The little man in my life". Daily Mirror. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  11. Staff writer (13 November 2003). "She was just 24 when she wed in a Hindu temple...it's part of her". Sunday Mirror. Trinity Mirror.
  12. Staff writer (16 May 2009). "Shobna Gulati: I still can't look at myself in a full-length mirror". Daily Mirror. Trinity Mirror. Retrieved 31 August 2016. I married this British Indian guy who I met at a wedding but we were separated within a year. It was an acrimonious split. Basically, I was too young to get married. Then I met Akshay's father in London. I was 28 when I became pregnant we split up. I didn't want to have a termination so I decided to go ahead and have the baby.
  13. "No Regrets For Shobna Gulati". FemaleFirst. She told Scotland's Sunday Mail newspaper: "It can take over your life. People began to treat me as Sunita. My son is now 15 but when I was in Dinnerladies he was only three...."
  14. Wylie, Ian (22 November 2004). "Shobna Gulati just can't relax". Manchester Evening News. Trinity Mirror.
    - Marsden, Carl (4 March 2009). "Shobna: Girls are not second class citizens". Oldham Advertiser. Trinity Mirror.
  15. Nikki Bedi (presenter), Shobna Gulati (guest) (9 December 2009). Nikki Bedi (Radio) (BBC Asian Network ed.). BBC. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  16. "Shobna Gulati on Glasgow's food, football and New River City role". Glasgow Live. 5 November 2017. Apart from planning a trip to the Oran Mor’s smash hit long-running afternoon theatre experience, A Play A Pie and A Pint, the lifelong Manchester United supporter and season ticket holder has been getting to grips with her other favourite pastime.
  17. "Flying the flag for Oldham". The Oldham Evening Chronicle. 4 March 2015.
    - http://manchesterlieutenancy.org/Gulati_Shobna%7C}}
  18. "Street star joins murder hunt". Manchester Evening News. Trinity Mirror. 12 August 2004. Retrieved 27 January 2021.
  19. "Hidden angst of 'trapped' teenager". BBC News. BBC. 11 January 2008. Retrieved 26 January 2013.
  20. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/2302943
  21. http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=10979
  22. https://www.hud.ac.uk/about/honorary-graduates/
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