Shobna Gulati

Shobna Gulati is a British actress, writer, and dancer. Gulati is a soap star best known for playing Anita in Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies and Sunita Alahan in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street from 2001 to 2006, a role to which she returned at the end of 2009 and departed again in 2013. From 13 March 2013 to 30 May 2014, Gulati appeared as a panellist on the lunchtime chat-show Loose Women. Gulati is also one of very few actors to have appeared in both Coronation Street and its rival series EastEnders (in 2000). Gulati was born in Oldham, Lancashire to parents of Hindu Indian descent. She has a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern politics from the University of Manchester. 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 received excellent reviews for her work in Victoria Wood's BBC sitcom Dinnerladies as a main character, this finished in 2000 after two years and she appeared in both series. She appeared as Ameena Badawi from October to December 2000, in EastEnders she is one of few to have appeared in both rival-soaps EastEnders and Coronation Street, also Gulati appeared in the crossover between both soap's (East Street) in 2010 as her main character, Sunita. In 2001, she appeared in the short film Shadowscan, directed by Tinge Krishnan, which won a Bafta Award; and, in 2004, Gulati 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 initially 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 co-star Nitin Ganatra play a holidaying couple who are under the mistaken belief Guantanamo Bay is a holiday resort. The sketch also starred American actors Chevy Chase and Seth Green. Gulati has recently been seen as one of many storytellers in the 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 Theatre in Manchester. In 2008, Gulati made her debut as a filmmaker, producing the short film Akshay for the motiroti's 60x60 Secs. During this same period, the actress returned to her Coronation Street role as Sunita Alahan, where she stayed for three years. 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 (cbbc, Bedtime Stories). In November 2010, Gulati was a guest panellist on ITVs flagship show Loose Women, to celebrate fifty years of Coronation Street and in April 2012, to celebrate soap week and in June 2011, Gulati was a guest on Countdown. Upon announcing her departure from Coronation Street, the actress expressed her desire to write and perform more comedy than her soap-opera career permitted her time to do. In 2016, she appeared in the ITV/Netflix series Paranoid. Gulati also made a guest appearance on Casualty on 29th October 2016. Gulati married the architect Anshu Srivastava in a Hindu ceremony on 10 November 1990 but the couple divorced in May 1994.