Shreela Ghosh
| Shreela Ghosh | |
|---|---|
| Born |
25 September 1962  Shillong, Assam, India
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Shreela Ghosh (born 25 September 1962 in Assam, India), a former dancer, actress and reporter, became publicly known in the United Kingdom when she was cast as Naima Jeffery in 1985, one of the original characters in BBC's soap opera, EastEnders. She has since given up performing to work as an arts executive. She was the first programme director for Arts and Heritage at the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, and went on to become the Deputy Director for the Institute of International Visual Arts (InIVA). She now is the Director of the Free Word Centre.
Ghosh began her working life as a performer, a classical (Bharatanatyam and Kathak) Indian dancer and singer. At the age of seventeen — after acquiring an agent and an equity card — she worked extensively in theatre, which included work with leading organisations such as Max Stafford-Clark’s where she was also working as Marketing and Publicity Officer. Television work followed with roles in Play For Today productions The Garland in 1981, and Moving on the Edge in 1984. She also had roles in the BBC nursing drama Angels (1982) and played Minnie in the successful televised ITV mini-series, The Jewel in the Crown, in 1984. Although Ghosh was not trained as an actor in a conventional sense, her coaching in voice and the dramatic techniques she had learnt from Indian dance came into play for many of her roles.
Ghosh continued her television career in 1985 when she was cast as Naima Jeffery, one of the original characters in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders. Naima and her husband Saeed (Andrew Johnson) were the first Asian characters to appear in the programme, an ethnic minority that had previously been under-represented in British soap. Their inclusion was also a well-intentioned attempt to reflect the cross-section of multi-cultural society that existed in the East End of London. Ghosh remained in the series til 1987.
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