Shobna Gulati DPS.qxp_Layout 1 24/01/2017 11:06 Page 1
FEATURE
Shobna Gulati Ex-Corrie favourite talks about starring in Anita And Me at the Wolverhampton Grand
In the 20 years since Meera Syal's semiautobiographical portrait of life in the Black Country in the 1970s first appeared in print, it's become something of a contemporary classic, spawning a popular film adaptation and even, much to Syal's own bemusement, becoming a GCSE set text. In 2015, Anita And Me made its stage debut at Birmingham REP; now the theatre’s artistic director, Roxana Silbert, is bringing the much-loved story back home to the Midlands with a run at the Wolverhampton Grand. Starring in the show as mother to the teenage protagonist Meena (the ‘Me’ of the title) is Shobna Gulati, best known for her long-running role as Sunita Alahan in Coronation Street, as well as for her regular appearances on Loose Women. Taking over the role of Daljit from Ayesha Dharker, Gulati is very much looking forward to returning to the city and the theatre. “I love Wolverhampton,” she says. “I've got quite a special relationship with it, actually. When I was a dancer I used to work for Sampad, so I went round schools in Cannock, Wolverhampton and Birmingham teaching creative dance using Indian Classical dance as a basis. I was also here for 16 weeks to do panto - in those days the Grand's was the longest-running panto in the country.” Gulati describes her character Daljit as a loving but often quietly disapproving mother who, like many parents, has a “sticky relationship” with her daughter. “I think Daljit sees a lot of herself in Meena, and is perhaps still holding onto her own