Biographies

Cast

Delroy Atkinson - Cal

Delroy’s theatre credits include: Shrek (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Avenue Q

(The Noel Coward, The Gielgud and The Wyndham); The Harder They Come

(Toronto / Miami tour and Theatre Royal Stratford East); Lost in the Stars (Royal Festival Hall); Come Dancing (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Porgy and Bess (Andrew Fell Ltd); Jerry Springer: The Opera (National Theatre and Cambridge Theatre); Bomb-itty of Errors (New Ambassadors Theatre); RENT (Prince of Wales Theatre and UK tour); Five Guys Named Moe (UK tour); Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre); The Enchanted Pig (The Young Vic); Twelfth Night(Nuffield Theatre); Our Country’s Good (Nuffield Theatre); Poison (Tricycle Theatre); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (West Yorkshire Playhouse);Tempest (Nuffield Theatre); Treasure Island (Nuffield Theatre); Demons(Hackney Empire); The Threepenny Opera (City Centre Theatre New York).

His film and television credits include: Small Island (Ruby Films / BBC); My Family (BBC); After You’ve Gone (BBC); No Heroics (Tiger Aspect / ITV2); Moonmonkeys (Avalon / BBC3); Still Crazy (Colombia Tristar).

Keeza Farhan - Omar/ Dance Captain

Please note the part of Omar will now be played by the company.

Keeza trained for his BA (Hons) at Central England University and is also a self-taught and trained dancer. He trained at The Harris Drama School. He regularly trains at Pineapple Dance Studio and Studio 68 with TK spin masters of movements and boogiezone. He is also a commercial choreographer producing new and exciting works for 2013, and is very happy to be dance captain for Sadler’s Wells in this magical show, Wah! Wah! Girls.

Keeza can currently be seen playing little Garry Patel on E4’s PhoneShop written by Ricky Gervais and Phil Bowker. Keeza’s other TV credits include: Pineapple Dance Studios, Louis Spence Show Bizness, working with Brian Friedman on The X Factor as a dancer and a Cadbury Crème Egg advert campaign.

His theatre credits include: Peter Oswald’s The Ramayana (Birmingham Rep); Graham Vick’s opera don visage, Bollywood Land (Madrid West End District); and Britain’s Got Bhangra.

His dance credits include: MOBO Awards, The X Factor, Trouble TV Bump ‘n’

grind, assistant choreographer Sakoba dance and Britain’s Got Bhangra. 

Keeza is very happy to be working with the likes of Emma Rice, Gauri Sharma Tripathi and Javed Sanadi on this amazing production with this equally amazing cast. 

Rina Fatania - Bindi / Sameena Bibi

Training: BA (Hons) in acting from Central School of Speech and Drama, 2000.

Theatre credits include: Bibiji in Britain’s Got Bhangra (UK tour); Bushra in The House of Bilquis Bibi (Hampstead Theatre and UK tour); Bibiji in Britain’s Got Bhangra (Rifco Arts); Ayah in Wuthering Heights (Tamasha Theatre Co); Kiran/Ilain, characters devised by Rina in It Ain’t All Bollywood (Rifco Arts, national and Pakistan tour); Mrs Gupta/Ruby in A Fine Balance (Tamasha Theatre Co);Zainab/Hasina in The Child of Divide (Tamasha Theatre Co, New York andLA tour); Agnes in Meri Christmas (RifcoArts); Kiran in The Deranged Marriage (Rifco Arts); Pushpa in Strictly Dandia (Tamasha Theatre Co); Swing in Bombay Dreams (Apollo Victoria, West End); andvarious roles in Arabian Nights (MidlandArts Centre).

Film credits include: Shammu in Mumbai Charlie (Pukkanasha Films) and Agent in The Travel Londoner (Painting Pictures).

Further credits include: Meghna in We Are Water (BBC World Service); Meghna in Oceans Unite Us (BBC World Service); and Mrs Patel in Silver Street (BBC Asian Network). 

Rebecca Grant – Sita

Rebecca Grant is best known for playing series regular Daisha Anderson in BBC One’s BAFTA-winning programme Holby City. 

She received an award for best actress in a lead role at the International Filmmakers’ Festival for World Cinema in an independent movie called Kristina and recently completed work on her next project, a British film called Chakara by Laid Back Films. Shooting in Kerala, India and London, it also stars Ben Richards, Rez Kempton and Clarke Crewe.

Rebecca was born to a Filipino and part-Spanish mother and British/French Canadian father and is the youngest of three girls.

Rebecca trained in ballet, tap, modern, Asian, Philippine and Polynesian dancing and various other types of dance, including mastering the skilful art of flamenco. This led to Rebecca’s first professional job in David Freeman’s Carmen at the Royal Albert Hall.

Before she turned 20 she was picked by Andrew Lloyd Webber for the hit West End musical Bombay Dreams.

Further credits include: Nurse Flynn in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Magic Wanda in Immodesty and Walter’s Burlesque! both in the West End, Viola in Twelfth Night and Jean in JB Priestly’s The Glass Cage (both at the Royal,

Northampton), and Sonya in Too Much Pressure at the Belgrade, Coventry.

Rebecca has just completed shooting two episodes of Emmerdale as Dr Stamford and could recently be seen in Tagore’s Women at the Southwark Playhouse. 

Sophiya Haque - Soraya /Company Captain

Sophiya began her dance training whilst still in her nappies with Mary Forrester in her hometown of Portsmouth before training full-time at the Arts Educational School London.

Her evenings were spentwriting and recording new songs with herband Akasa which led to a record dealwith Warner Bros in 1988. With thesuccess of her music video One Night InMy Life directed by the legendary Jack Cardiff, Sophiya was snapped up by the bosses at MTV Asia.

Over the next sevenyears her presenting career gave her thetitle of ‘First Lady’ of music television, with her daily shows reaching 53countries. After her move to Bombay in1997, Bollywood came calling andSophiya lent her dance talents to thelikes of Sanjay Dutt, Abhishek Bachan, Salman Khan, Mani Ratnam, Saroj Khan and Farah Khan to name but a few, herpersonal favourite being The Rising with Aamir Khan. 

Sophiya’s acting debutcame in the form of a lead role in themovie Snip. Sophiya returned to the UK in 2002 to playRani in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams at the Apollo Victoria, The Janoo Rani in The Far Pavilions directed by Gale Edwards at the Shaftesbury Theatre, Shinde’in Rifco Arts’ Britain’s Got Bhangra and Asha in Gandhi and Coconuts at The Arcola. In 2009 Sophiya became a regular on ITV’s Coronation Street as Poppy the barmaid and is currently on air with the hit Nickelodeon TV series House Of Anubis, playing the wicked Senkhara.

Other highlights include Puja in the Angelina Jolie film Wanted, DJ for the BBC Asian Network and The Vagina Monologues at Southbank Centre. Sophiya was also delighted to have been musical stager and assistant director on the new musical Rue Magique at The King’s Head Theatre.

After Wah! Wah! Girls, Sophiya will appear as Sarala in the forthcoming feature Jadoo. 

Tony Jayawardena - Mansoor

Tony’s recent television credits include: Beautiful Day, Pete Versus Life, Kabadasses for the Channel 4 Comedy Lab, Silent Witness, Moses Jones, Trial and Retribution, Blair, Doctors, Hotel Babylon and Holby City.

Tony has also worked extensively in theatre in a diverse range of productions that include: Cinderella (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Joe Gargary in Great Expectations (English Touring Theatre); Aslan in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Northampton); Twelfth Night (RSC); and London Assurance, All’s Well That Ends Well and England People Very Nice (all for the Royal National Theatre) among others.

Tony’s film credits include: Jadoo (Jadoo Films); Trance (Fox Searchlight); The

Wedding Video (Squirrel Films); The Massive (Triangle); Tower Block (Tower Block 13 Ltd); Screwed (Surya Entertainment); Huge (Cinema 3 SPV2); A Bunch of Amateurs (Trademark Films); and Chasing Liberty (Alcon Entertainment). 

Tariq Jordan – Kabir

Tariq graduated from Webber Douglas Academy and Central School of Speech and Drama in 2007.

Tariq’s theatre credits include: The Bomb; A Partial History ‘Axis’ as Speechwriter, The Bomb; A Partial History ‘Little Russians’ as Yuri and The Bomb; A Partial History ‘Option’ as Prakash (Tricycle Theatre); Great Expectations as Pip (English Touring Theatre/Watford Palace); Guantanamo as Ruhel (Tricycle/New Ambassadors); and Fragile Land as Quasim (Hampstead Theatre).

TV and film credits include: Injustice as Jameel (ITV); Shameless as Gary (Company Pictures); Law and Order series 1–3 as Teddy (Kudos); George Gently as Hamed (Company Pictures); Lewis as Barham Rezvani (ITV); Spooks as Jawad (Kudos); White Girl as Rehan (Tiger Aspect); The Bill (two episodes) as Rahim Woods (Talkback Thames); Wired as Jez (ITV); Dr Who as Sales Rep (BBC); Clean Skin as Paul (UK Film Studio); and My Lad – Short as Sid (film by Sami Khan). 

Japjit Kaur - Devi / Music Captain

Japjit Kaur is a London-based singersongwriter who writes in several Indian languages. Her latest project is a feature film called All in Good Time directed by Nigel Cole.

She was also appointed music director for the original Olivier award-winning show Rafta Rafta directed by Nicholas Hytner at the Royal National Theatre.

Over the years Japjit has worked with several music composers and recorded for various music albums, short films and television. She has also toured nationally and performed internationally. Her live performances, concerts and festivals include venues such as the London Palladium, LSO St Luke’s, Queen’s Hall Edinburgh, QEH South Bank and Sage Gateshead.

Japjit has also been the voice of Svara Kanti since 2010 and has been touring since.

Sheena Patel - Shanti / Young Soraya

Sheena trained at Guildford School of Acting, where she graduated with a BA (Hons) in acting.

Stage includes: Britain’s Got Bhangra (Rifco Arts); Romonic (Soho Theatre); Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Finborough Theatre); Wuthering Heights (Tamasha Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith); Romeo In The City (workshop, Theatre Centre); Mujra Girls (workshop, Sadler’s Wells); Hearts And Minds (Khyaal Theatre); and The Price (Walking Forward Theatre Company).

Television includes: EastEnders, Holby City, Law and Order and Casualty.

Sheena is very excited and thrilled to be joining Wah! Wah! Girls. 

Davina Perera – Anita

Davina is a scholarship graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London.

She is the featured vocalist on the UK number one hit Something Good by Utah Saints.

West End credits include: creating the roles of Udita Screwala and Poonam Pandia in the world premiere of Britain’s Got Bhangra at Theatre Royal Stratford East, Mary-Lou Wilson in Annie Get Your Gun at the Young Vic starring Jane Horrocks, dance captain in Wuthering Heights for Tamasha at the Lyric Hammersmith, performing the role of Priya in the world premiere of Andrew

Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams at the Apollo Victoria, and Yvette in Cameron Mackintosh’s Miss Saigon at Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Other theatre appearances include: lead actor in Primary Voices (Diorama, Euston); lead female vocalist in A Night at the Musicals (UK tour); Beauty in Beauty and the Beast (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Princess Jasmine in Aladdin (Qdos, Lewisham Theatre); and Tiger Lily in Peter Pan (Qdos, Theatre Royal Brighton).

Commercials and modelling include: Smash Hits TV, San Miguel, BT and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, cover girl for Yoga Magazine, MAC, The Times, Sandown Racecourse and Learn Direct. 

Gurpreet Singh - Anish / Tariq

Gurpreet trained at LAMDA.

Theatre includes: Jag in Behna (Kali Theatre Company); various characters in Paradise (Theatre Rites); Islander in Nation (National Theatre); Ashish in White Open Spaces (Pentabus); Dhani in Zameen (Kali Theatre Company/Soho Theatre); Sebastian in Twelfth Night (Royal Shakespeare Company); Amiens/Hymen in As You Like It (Royal Shakespeare Company); various characters in Orientations (Border Crossings); Ensemble/understudy Sweetie

in Bombay Dreams (Victoria Apollo); Manir in East Is East (New Vic Theatre); and Cassio in Othello (Leicester Haymarket).

TV and filmincludes: Dupinder Badmarsh in All About Me (Celador); Ricky Patel in Murder In Mind (BBC); Rana in Casualty (BBC); and Shop Assistant in Sari and Trainers (Channel 4 Film).

Shelley Williams – Fauzia

Theatre credits include: Cinderella and Takeaway (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Up Against The Wall (Bolton Octagon Theatre); Annowons Song (Tricycle Theatre); Jack and the Beanstalk (Barbican); Daddy Cool The Musical (Shaftesbury Theatre); HAIR (Octagon Theatre); We’re In This Together! (The King’s Head); Supposed To Live (Pleasance Theatre); Blue Girl (Vienna’s English Theatre); Sweet Soul Music (Solvedore); Sleeping Beauty (Paul Robeson Theatre); Poison (Tricycle Theatre); Romeo and Juliet (The Open Air Theatre); Twilight (Voices in the Dark Theatre Company tour); Aladdin

(North Cheshire Lodge); and Septimus Severus (Collective Artistes).

Film includes: Ballast (Manchester Film Festival) and Two Minds (Off the

Cuff Productions).

Creative Team

Tanika Gupta  

Tanika is an award winning playwright whose prolific work for theatre includes Skeleton (1997) at Soho Theatre; The Waiting Room (2000) and Sanctuary (2002) at the National Theatre; an adaptation of Hobson's Choice (2003) for the Young Vic and Gladiator Games (2005) at Sheffield Crucible and Stratford East theatres. Sugar Mummies (2006) was performed at the Royal Court Theatre and White Boy (2007) for the NYT at Soho theatre.

More recently she adapted Great Expectations for Watford Palace Theatre and ETT, transposing the novel to 1861 in Calcutta. 

She has also written extensively for television, including for EastEnders, Grange Hill and The Bill, as well as writing original screenplays and over 25 original plays for BBC Radio. 

She was awarded an MBE in 2008.

Emma Rice

Emma is the Joint Artistic Director of Kneehigh.

Her productions for Kneehigh include The Red Shoes (2002 TMA Theatre Award for Best Director), The Wooden Frock (2004 TMA Theatre Award nomination for Best Touring Production), The Bacchae (2005 TMA Theatre Award for Best Touring Production), Tristan & Yseult (2006 TMA Theatre Award nomination for Best Touring Production), Cymbeline (in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company for The Complete Works festival), A Matter of Life and Death (Royal National Theatre in association with Kneehigh), Rapunzel (in association with Battersea Arts Centre), Brief Encounter (tour and West End; Studio 54, Broadway), and Don John (in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Bristol Old Vic).

Keith Khan

Keith is an artist, director and designer.

He is best known for his spectacular shows such as Coming of Age and Escapade with Akademi, Alladeen with New York based company The Builders Association, his work as Director of Design for the Manchester Commonwealth Games 2002, and his Artistic Direction for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Commonwealth Celebrations. 

He was also part of the creative team that produced the Millennium Dome’s opening ceremony. 

Keith is also known for founding the company motiroti and his inaugural show Moti Roti Puttli Chunni (1993) was the UK’s first Bollywood Musical and won a Time Out Dance and Performance Award. 

Wah! Wah! Girls marks Keith’s return to design, following his role as Head of Culture for the London Olympics.

Prior to this Keith was the Chief Executive of Rich Mix, completing the capital phase of the project, and opening the building in 2004. 

Keith has recently established Keith Khan Associates, a wide-ranging creative organisation with a variety of international collaborators that creates and delivers design projects and commissions. 

The company is currently working on concept development for LB Hackney’s 2012 Cultural Centrepiece.

Javed Sanadi

Javed's credits as a choreographer extend from film and TV to the corporate industry.

A self-trained dancer in the dance styles of Bollywood, salsa, samba, rumba, jive, cha cha cha, waltz and the quick step, Sanadi’s formal training includes modern ballet, contemporary, Kathak, and bharatnatayam.

His choreographic credits include the show Dance India Dance for Zee TV, Ustaadon ke Ustaad on Sony TV, the Miss India Music Video, Dus da dum for Salman Khan, and the Bollywood movie Bombay to Bangkok by Nagesh Kukunoor.

Gauri Sharma Tripathi

Gauri is an artist in residence at Southbank Centre.

She trained in the classical tradition of Kathak, which she learned from her guru and mother Padma Sharma.

Taking Kathak into non-traditional and collaborative environments, Gauri has choreographed and performed in shows including Coming of Age; Baiju Bawara; Escapade; Sapnay and Waterscapes, Initium, and Sufi:Zen. Choreographic highlights include Polaroid Feet, Sacred Monsters, Gnosis for Akram Khan.

Known for grounding her performance in the traditions of Kathak while giving it a contemporary viewpoint, she recently concluded her tour of Circa and has collaborated with Shlomo, a beat boxer to create the first Kathak and Beatboxing choir titled Urban Vani.

Gauri has recently choreographed Bollywood Trip in collaboration with Theatre Republique Denmark. Gauri is an ISTD South Asian dance faculty member and examiner, and is also curator and contributor to the Alchemy and WOW festivals at Southbank Centre.

Niraj Chag

Niraj is one of the key modern interpreters of Asian classical and folk styles.

Self-taught in music, he began experimenting by mixing modern production with western and eastern classical styles.

His work was spotted by Nitin Sawhney, leading to his first record deal with the Outcaste label. Three years in the making, in 2006 he released his critically acclaimed, award-winning debut album, Along the Dusty Road.

He created his first musical, Baiju Bawra, aged 25. His soundtrack work since then has included Mahabharata and Ramayana (BBC Radio 4), the Bafta nominated Simon Schama's Power of Art series (BBC2) and the 2008 TV series The Age of Terror.

In 2009 he created and produced the score for the BBC series Darwin's Dangerous Ideas, presented by Andrew Marr.

Chag has worked on more than twenty dance productions including Awaz, Bells and Daredevas (Akademi).

He has also produced a wide variety of original work for TV and radio such as HBO’s Sex and the City and for plays, including the recent Olivier Award-winning Rafta, Rafta (National Theatre).

In 2008 he put together an eclectic score for the official Olympic Torch event on London's South Bank featuring 600 vocalists, opera singers and a 40-piece brass band.

Malcolm Rippeth

Malcolm has worked extensively with Kneehigh, Headlong, West Yorkshire Playhouse, ETT, Northern Stage, Live Theatre and ballet LORENT.

His recent credits include The Pitchfork Disney at the Arcola; The Lady from the Sea at The Rose Theatre Kingston; The Wild Bride for Kneehigh; A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings for Little Angel Theatre; Stones in His Pockets at the Tricycle Theatre; and The Importance of Being Earnest for the Rose Theatre Kingston at Hong Kong Arts Festival.

Recent work for Kneehigh includes Brief Encounter at Studio 54 on Broadway, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in the West End and The Red Shoes touring internationally.

Other recent work includes Decade, a site-specific piece for Headlong at St. Katharine Docks; The Acid Test, Spur of the Moment and Kin at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs.

He was awarded a 2010 Village Voice OBIE as a member of the design team for Brief Encounter at St. Ann's Warehouse, New York and the 2009 Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Lighting Designer for his work on Brief Encounter and Six Characters in Search of an Author in the West End.

He was nominated for the 2011 Outer Critics Circle Award for Brief Encounter on Broadway.

Simon Baker

Simon has created sound designs for over 70 plays and musicals. 

He has worked with many of the leading theatre practitioners, composers and arts organisations. 

His most recent credits include Boeing Boeing (London and Broadway – 2007 Tony Nomination for Best Sound), The Lord of the Rings (Toronto and London – 2008 Olivier Nomination for Best Sound), I Am Shakespeare (UK Tour and Chichester) God of Carnage (UK tour and Los Angeles), Our House (UK Tour), Brief Encounter for Kneehigh (2009 Olivier Nomination for Best Sound), The Norman Conquests and Complicit at the Old Vic, Don John (Kneehigh Theatre/RSC/World Tour), Arcadia (Duke Of Yorks Theatre), The Birds (Gate Theatre – Dublin),  As You Like It and The Tempest (BAM/Old Vic/Bridge Project 2010), The Late Middle Classes (Donmar), Kneehigh’s Asylum Project, La Bete (London and Broadway), Matilda for the RSC, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Leicester Curve and the West End), Batman (arena tour), and Di and Viv and Rose (Hampstead Theatre).