BRIDGE TOO FAR?
Sunetra Sarker’s fears over her new role in TV’S Ackley Bridge.
WITH several years as a Casualty stalwart, it might be thought Sunetra Sarker would feel at home in any TV role.
But the former Strictly favourite has revealed her fears over her part in Ackley Bridge, currently back for its second series.
It’s set in a fictional Yorkshire mill town with a largely divided white and Asian community who find themselves thrown together in a newly-merged college.
“It was such a new venture and I was playing such a different style of character from what I’m used to,” said Sunetra, who is one of the teachers, Kaneez Paracha.
“I was nervous I might not hit the nail on the head and it would fall flat. “But I was really pleased at the response and how many people from Asian communities that don’t really talk to me about television went out of their way to tell me how much they liked it.
“People were saying how much I reminded them of their auntie or whatever.
“It puts a spotlight on the Asian community in a way you don’t usually see. You don’t often get to see the more jovial, personality-filled Asian woman on screen.” Sunetra says that in the past she was offered roles that were more menial and stereotypical.
“They were quiet, submissive, women in arranged marriages.
“You never saw the other side of the coin and I was always waiting to show something new.
“I was bit groundbreaking in being one of the first female Asian faces on TV when I did Brookside.
“When I was growing up I didn’t see many faces that looked like me on screen.”
And Sunetra says it’s nice that other young girls have been able to view her as a bit of a role model.
“I hope that’s the case,” she confides. “I’ve had some really lovely letters and there are other actresses who have said that it was thanks to me. “They were able to say to their mum and dad, ‘Look, she’s doing it, why can’t I?’
“I like to think that in some people’s homes it might have made a difference.”
Diversity and fairer representation – as long as it’s not just for the sake of ticking a box – is what Sunetra hopes we’ll see more of as time goes on. Being in a school drama couldn’t help but have the likeable and chatty actress think back to her own education. And, she admits, it was a funny old time. “I was the class clown,” she admits. “I learned to be self-deprecating quite early on.
“I was a skinny little thing and I was also different because my mum sent me to a convent.
“I was amongst a lot of girls who didn’t look like me and I felt I had to find a way to try and fit in well.
“I got through my exams although I wasn’t instinctively the brightest kid in the class, so I became a bit of a joker.
“And a result I was the one who would get into a bit of trouble with the teachers for talking too much. “I remember one school report said I’d do better if I learned to walk before I could run and did a bit less chatting at the back of the class.” But while Sunetra was talkative and liked a laugh, she says her son Noah doesn’t seem to be a chip off the old block.
“He is naturally very bright,” she laughs. “He is like a sponge and he really wants to learn.
“When the American election was going on he was forever asking me questions.
“And I got a letter from his history teacher the other day telling me how he’d written an amazing essay on the British Empire.
“I quizzed him about it and he said he thought the Empire was a great thing.
“I was arguing back about some things and he really knew what he was talking about.
“When I was his age I wouldn’t have had a clue how to debate. “He’s done it all without the pressure I had to study from my mum and dad.”
Ackley Bridge, Channel 4, Tue, 8pm.