The cast and crew of BBC One’s upcoming series, ‘A Suitable Boy’ held a webinar on Tuesday evening. The session was moderated by the BBC Asian Network’s Senior Journalist and Entertainment Reporter, Haroon Rashid, who was joined by director, Mira Nair, screenwriter, Andrew Davies with cast Ishaan Khatter, Tabu, Tanya Maniktala and CEO of Lookout Point, Faith Penhale.
Adapted from author Vikram Seth’s novel, A Suitable Boy, the story of the BBC One drama is set in 1951. It shows the days when India was struggling in the burning embers of freedom and there was a cauldron of politics. Calling it a “distilled screenplay” the cast spoke about the filming and inception of the show.
Andrew Davies chuckled, “I generally prefer the writer I’m working with to be long dead but I’m happy to work with one who is still alive. We (him and Vikram) met over a four hour lunch in which by the end of it I was quite drunk but we were friends by the end of it,” he said.
Debutante actor, Tanya Maniktala who plays Lata Mehra in the show, said, “I had to remind myself that Mira Nair, a legend, believed in me so I should believe in myself. People don’t have any expectations of me as of now. It’s surreal to be a part of this and I’m grateful for this opportunity.”
Ishaan Khatter plays Maan Kapoor, a colourful and interesting character. Asian Voice asked Ishaan to elaborate on the energy of his character because it somewhere matches his spirit and energy in real life. He said, “I’d imagine you’re comparing my energy to my previous work in interviews and public events that you might have seen me, but I have to say that a very large part of Maan’s energy came from the character and it was very much the requirement of his character and the story for him to be as energetic as as he is. I think I borrowed that to a very large extent from of course Mira Di (Nair) and from my co-actors who gave me the right cues to be able to be that. He is sort of a miscreant, in a sense, a rebel without a cause and he is sort of the non-conformist in his family. So he has to be the one that kind of sticks out in order for the story and the themes to go forward. When I said that it’s a very compelling character, that’s one of the elements that made him so. As the story progresses, you’ll see why he happens to be a certain way and you’ll also see the very defined arc of Maan that was wonderfully written by Sir Andrew Davies and by Mira Di.”
Tabu, plays the role of Saeeda Bai, a courtesan. Tabu has some heavy weight dialogues written by Hriday Lani and she has performed seven ghazals sung by singer Kavita Seth. When Asian Voice stated that her dialogues have the potential to get recognition, an elated Tabu told us, “It involved a lot of time spent with each other, laughter, a lot of going back into history and coming to a way of communicating with the characters in a languages - Hindustani and English. We had discussions with Vikram about how he sees the character and of course the music. I think Mira’s favourite part in any film is the music, the songs, the playback and the background. Wherever there is Mira, there has to be an echo of beautiful sounding pieces and beautiful lyrics.”
Mira Nair added, “Music is my oxygen and it is a big part of my wanting to direct ‘A Suitable Boy’. It was actually Saeeda Bai’s ghazals and what she sang and the whole way she was inspired.” Mira explained how she cast for the show. She said, “If we don’t tell our own stories, no one else will. I have a pulse on Asian actors in England, in fact two of them I did cast in London - Mikhail Sen and Shubham Saraf. Very early on, Andrew and Vikram, wanted to restore the balance of language even though the novel is written in English. The worlds of the characters are very anglicised and in English but it's also another one, rural India.”
They also spoke about the homosexual undertones in Maan (Ishaan) and Firoze’s (Shubham Saraf) characters. “They have a delightful romantic friendship which at times has become physical. It’s a romantic friendship. Certainly, I’ve been indicating that,” said Davies. “I know so many people this way I didn’t want to ignore it or sugar coat or avoid it,” Mira added. Ishaan said, “I was absolutely on the same page. It was communicated very clearly. It is sort of undefined in the larger scheme of the story. She didn’t want to define it too much; she only wanted to evoke a feeling.”
