March 03, 2006

The big Coronation Street Event


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Heidi and I went to the Street at the Westin Hotel last Tuesday. Six hundred enthusiastic people were seated in the ballroom to see and talk with Shobna Gulati (who plays Sunita Alahan, the corner store shopkeeper, Dev's wife from the Street). She answered questions and later came into the audience to meet everyone, she said, but by that time, it was so late, Heidi and I left. (School the next morning. Heidi also teaches. )

Sunita is a beautiful charming lively woman who answered questions with directness and humor. A few of the interesting points she made were about the cast. Everyone on the show, she said, is acting. No one, not one person, is how they are in their lives as they are on the show. Shelly would never let anyone push her around, Craig has a beautiful singing voice, Charlie is really a sweetie, as is Tracy, and she herself, she said, is a bitch from hell (hard to believe, that one!). She also said she thinks the reason Coronation Street hasn’t caught on in the States as it has here is probably because it is so real: just real people in real situations, no gloss, not sheen. It definitely is a different kind of program than Desperate Housewives or Grey’s Anatomy. Not the “pretty people” here. She also gave us some spoilers, which I won’t pass on, but you can, I am told, find them on the net (if you want to know what happens before the nine months lag we have in Canada).

The Westin will never be the same again for me!

(Photo courtesy of Heidi)

Posted by leya at March 3, 2006 05:06 PM