Actresses play key roles in BBC’s latest thriller
COUNTY PAIR CAN BE SEEN IN THE GIRL BEFORE
TWO actors from Leicestershire have landed key roles in a BBC psychological thriller.
Rakhee Thakrar and Amanda Drew are appearing in four-part drama The Girl Before, showing this week on BBC One.
Based on the international bestselling book by JP Delaney, it stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Jessica Plummer.
Thakrar, who was born in Leicester and studied at Soar Valley College, is best known for her roles in EastEnders, as Shabnam Masood, and Emily Sands in Netflix’s Sex Education.
In The Girl Before, she plays Mia, a close friend of Mbatha-Raw’s Jane.
Following the stillbirth of her daughter, Jane, who has been living with Mia, moves into a dream home – One Folegate Street. However, it hides a dark history.
At first trying to keep her friend close to home, Mia eventually accepts Jane’s move away and remains a close confidante as the minimalist home, its history and its architect Edward, played by David Oyelowo, slowly catch up with Jane.
Meanwhile, Drew, who studied at Beauchamp College in Oadby and is best known for her role as Mad May in EastEnders, plays Carol, the psychologist to Plummer’s Emma.
Her role is to help Emma recover from a terrifying burglary in which she was sexually abused by an unknown perpetrator.
This is unbeknown to her boyfriend Simon (Ben Hardy) as the pair move into One Folegate Street.
The first episode of the thriller was watched by 3.6 million viewers, coming second to The Royal Variety Performance on ITV.
Tony Strong, who uses JP Delaney as a pseudonym, said: “Having written for the screen in a previous career, it’s long been a dream of mine to adapt The Girl Before, but I was determined to only do it if I could find partners who wanted to pursue high-quality, classy storytelling above all else.
“You really couldn’t get a more quality-focused line-up than (production company) 42, the BBC and HBO Max – and we’ve already attracted world-class talent in the shape of (director) Lisa Brühlmann, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Oyelowo.
“Psychological thrillers can be even more gripping on television than they would be as movies, and I’m incredibly excited to be re-telling this particular story in a visual medium.
“It’s also been great fun to collaborate on episodes two and three with a brilliant co-writer, Marissa Lestrade.”
The Girl Before can be streamed in full on BBC iPlayer.