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Everybody’s Talking About Jamie: Shobna Gulati on secret Sarah Lancashire friendship, leaving her soap days behind and ‘passive aggressive’ southerners

Shobna Gulati returns to Everybody’s Talking About Jamie for its big screen outing (Picture: Amazon Studios)

During Shobna Gulati’s career, she’s so far worked with two of the UK’s greatest northern institutions – Coronation Street, in which she played Sunita Alahan between 2001 and 2013, and Victoria Wood, for whom she appeared as Anita in Dinnerladies.

She’s also led a varied stage career, encompassing parts in productions of Daisy Pulls It Off, Grease and Anita & Me.

In 2018 she joined the cast of West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie for a year, taking on the role of Ray. Reprising it in the musical’s film adaptation was an ‘absolute yes’ for the actress, especially as she got slightly more time to ease into character than the two weeks’ rehearsal she was given for the show.

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Gulati recalls: ‘I’d spent a year in the West End getting to know Ray and being Ray. When you take over a part in the West End, it’s [initially] kind of like you’re a rabbit in headlights for a little while, but then because of the nature of how it is and because it’s an ensemble piece and because we’re telling this wonderful story, it was quite easy to settle into her and once I’d settled into her, I wanted to do her all the time.’

Gulati describes her involvement with the musical as ‘being part of a family [that] means such a lot to me’.

‘The creatives have come together to make such a joyous story, such a reinforcing, validatory story about people – and I just feel like I needed it then in my life.’

Shobna Gulati on stage as Ray with co-star Rebecca McKinnis in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at the Apollo Theatre (Picture: Matt Crockett)

The star at the Jamie movie’s premiere (Picture: David Fisher/Rex/Shutterstock)

Although there are changes to Ray’s writing for the film, the character is ‘essentially the same’, which Gulati describes as ‘a comfort blanket’.

The 55-year-old also had a fun secret in store for the film’s creative team when Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax star Sarah Lancashire was cast as Margaret, Jamie’s mum and Ray’s friend.

‘It was wonderful because, unbeknownst to anybody, any of the creative team and the casting director, Sarah and I have known each other since we were kids. How fortuitous!’

She continues: ‘So we already had a shorthand, a cultural shorthand of upbringing. You can tell we’re kind of from the same place in the film, it’s unspoken and it’s pretty much there. So, I think we were both laughing in a sense because, unbeknown to anybody else, we didn’t really have to work very hard on that bit!’

The pair hadn’t worked together before, but Gulati described the experience as ‘natural’.

Sarah Lancashire as Margaret New, with Gulati and newcomer Max Harwood as Jamie (Picture: John Rogers)

Both actresses were born and raised in Oldham, Greater Manchester. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is also set up north, but this time in Sheffield. Gulati describes the musical as having ‘a universality about it’ but agrees that its northern identity is also important.

‘I think what the north brings to the story is bathos and pathos. We northerners have a certain way of being, and I think that’s a very attractive way of being. You know, we don’t take ourselves too seriously and we say it like it is. So, at the end of the day, it’s a great place for a movie like this because you can just go anywhere with it, on account of that. There’s no sort of fluff and pomp and circumstance.’ 

Laughingly avoiding igniting any kind of conflict between the north and south of England, Gulati continues: ‘I’m not saying that southerners are like this but there’s just a bit of puff around it, isn’t there? There’s a bit of “You know, we don’t actually quite say what we want to say.” It’s a bit more passive aggressive, down south! 

‘So given the environment, that open environment where you can laugh and you can cry in equal measure – and in the same sentence – it’s a perfect place for this story.’

The former Loose Women panellist also touches on the ‘revolutionary’ nature of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, remarking: ‘You know, it’s a very secretly political film – but don’t tell anyone. It plays like music: there’s different levels to it, and you can watch it on so many different levels because it will touch you at different points as well.’

It’s been close to a decade since Gulati trod the cobbles of Corrie, also set in Greater Manchester, having been bumped off by ex-lover Karl Munro in 2013. Sunita’s ex-husband Dev Alahan and their children, teenage twins Asha (Tanisha Gorey) and Aadi (Adam Hussain), are still resident on Coronation Street, and I wonder how Gulati views her time on the soap?

Gulati with co-star Jimmi Harkishin on Coronation Street in 2012 (Picture: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock)

More: Amazon Prime Video

‘You know, the funny thing was when I was getting off the train yesterday, I met Jimmi [Harkishin, who plays Dev] on the platform,’ she reveals. ‘He was going up to Manchester to film and I was coming down for the Jamie movie premiere, and I just thought: “That’s really interesting.”

‘It’s like, I’ve left that past behind and now I’m going somewhere else. Obviously, I’m so grateful to have had that kind of platform as an actor. I think it’s a brilliant place to work and I think it’s a brilliant place to learn that daily grind of being that person.’

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is available on Amazon Prime Video from Friday September 17.

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