{"id":14711,"date":"2022-05-02T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T08:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1634554"},"modified":"2022-05-02T10:36:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T08:36:10","slug":"di-ray-creator-maya-sondhi-itv-series-is-my-prime-suspect","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/di-ray-creator-maya-sondhi-itv-series-is-my-prime-suspect\/","title":{"rendered":"DI Ray creator Maya Sondhi: \u2018ITV series is my Prime Suspect\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Flora Carr\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 02 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Maya Sondhi learnt that her crime thriller DI Ray<\/a> had been commissioned on the same day she gave birth to her youngest daughter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI look at my daughter, my youngest, who\u2019s two. And she was born on the day that I got the script commission from Polly [Hill, Head of Drama] at ITV.\u201d <\/span>Looking at her now-toddler, Sodhi explains, reminds her that \u201cthis show is as old as she is. So it\u2019s quite exciting to just get it out and kind of give it its birth, into public life\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Line of Duty<\/a> fans will recognise Sondhi at once: both an actress and a screenwriter, she memorably played PC Maneet Bindra, who had her throat slit in the season 5 premiere, bleeding out on a jetty before the credits rolled.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sondhi admits she knew, well in advance, the identity of mysterious AC-12 mole \u201cH\u201d<\/a>, who was revealed in the white-knuckle season 6 finale. \u201cI\u2019ve got people on the inside, obviously,\u201d she tells RadioTimes.com<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI knew while they were filming that [sixth] series, because obviously I wasn\u2019t in that series; but I\u2019ve got contacts,\u201d before she quips: \u201cBut don\u2019t tell Jed, he\u2019ll kill me! I never told anyone, but\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Jed\u2019 is Jed Mercurio, the creator of Line of Duty and other hit dramas like Bodyguard. Despite killing off Sondhi\u2019s on-screen character, behind-the-scenes he encouraged her writing, going on to executive-produce her first drama commission, the upcoming DI Ray.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Maya Sondhi played PC Maneet Bindra in Line of Duty<\/span><\/figcaption> BBC <\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

The four-part series has all the hallmarks of a Jed Mercurio drama, with plenty of cliffhangers, twists, and a rising body count to keep viewers glued to their armchairs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, working with Jed, you have to do the whole twists. Because he really is keen on making sure people are hooked. They need to keep watching, keep watching, keep watching.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But at its heart, Sondhi explains, the series is about its central character, DI Rachita Ray, whose journey begins when a murder case forces her to confront her own, personal struggle to reconcile both her British identity and her South Asian heritage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Given the importance of the show\u2019s titular lead (\u201cShe\u2019s pretty much in every scene\u201d), Sondhi was delighted when ITV cast Parminder Nagra, who first rose to fame as the lead in Bend It Like Beckham.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat was such a special film for me and many other people,\u201d Sondhi says. \u201cI thought, \u2018That\u2019s a British-Asian female lead. This is amazing\u2019. I didn\u2019t see that enough as a kid. And, you know, it was very inspiring. And I feel like this is a perfect circle now: I get grown-up Parminder as <\/span>my<\/span><\/i> heroine, <\/span>my<\/span><\/i> Helen Mirren, <\/span>my<\/span><\/i> Prime Suspect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Parminder Nagra plays DI Rachita Ray in\u00a0<\/span>DI Ray<\/span><\/figcaption> ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Set in Birmingham (where Sondhi was born), the show\u2019s first episode hands Rachita a plum promotion into the Homicide department, which she\u2019s initially over-the-moon about\u00a0 \u2013 even willing to overlook the department\u2019s initial blunder, when she\u2019s handed a lanyard belonging to a completely different person of South Asian heritage. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, Rachita soon learns she\u2019s been brought in to head up a \u2018CSH\u2019: meaning, a \u2018Culturally Specific Homicide\u2019. Not only that, but she must grapple with other team members\u2019 assumptions about both herself, and the case.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe show is peppered with these kinds of, well, these microaggressions: everyday racism, everyday sexism, everyday assumptions,\u201d Sondhi explains. When we first meet Rachita, she\u2019s just been mistaken for a supermarket worker. Later, when she wins an award at work, a white colleague asks her where she\u2019s from. <\/span>Leicester<\/span><\/i>, she supplies \u2013 before she\u2019s asked, pointedly: \u201cWhat\u2019s your <\/span>heritage<\/span><\/i>?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to bash people over the head when you talk about race and identity,\u201d Sondhi says. \u201cYou just want to gently explore things, to see how other people respond to stuff and how other people are feeling. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, all of these things are very real to me\u2026 If you ask anybody, any person of colour, [the question they have] probably been asked more times than they can count on their fingers is, \u2018Where are you from?.. No, I mean, where are you from-from?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sodhi hopes that people of colour will see their experience reflected on-screen, while other viewers may realise that they\u2019re guilty of asking those exact questions: \u201cPeople going, \u2018Oh, God, I\u2019ve asked that. That\u2019s a bit embarrassing. Well, now I\u2019m seeing it from the other side\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DI Rachita Ray in episode 1 of\u00a0<\/span>DI Ray<\/span><\/figcaption> ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Many of the on-screen moments of \u201ceveryday racism\u201d are lifted straight from Sondhi\u2019s own experiences, or else those of friends and family, she explains. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll of it is either from me, friends, [or] family. In episode three, Tony tells her [Rachita] about an experience when he went to pick up his son from football, and people brought out a different brown kid \u2013 the wrong brown kid. And that\u2019s a direct thing that happened to my mate. And when she told me, I said, \u2018Can I write that into the script?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sondhi believes some people may cry \u201cPC brigade\u201d, given that the series directly addresses everyday racism.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019ll always be other people going, \u2018Oh, PC brigade\u2019, or, \u2018You can\u2019t say anything these days\u2019. But it\u2019s too easy to say that.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[Those types of attitudes can make people of colour] feel like they\u2019re kicking up a fuss\u2026 or playing the race card, or getting too sensitive. It\u2019s not fair to do that to people, you know. So I feel like this is kind of a gentle way of sort of showing it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Although she was too busy with the scripts to star in DI Ray, Sondi took great delight in casting her former Line of Duty cast-mates, Ryan McKen (who plays Navin Kapoor) and Maanuv Thiara (who plays PS Tony Khatri),<\/span> in her own series.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thiara actually played her on-screen cousin in Line of Duty, she explains. \u201cI met these guys, and I thought, \u2018Oh, my God, they\u2019re from my end. These are the up and coming new lot. I\u2019m so excited by this, I want to write something and put them in it\u2019. And lo and behold, I managed to have both of them in it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Maanuv Thiara plays PS Tony Khatri in\u00a0<\/span>DI Ray<\/span><\/figcaption> ITV<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

During filming, Jed Mercurio was the \u201cmore serious\u201d executive, Sondhi says, joking: \u201cI was kind of more the, \u2018brings samosas, have a little bit of a laugh, make some tea, go home again\u2019 exec. I wanted to be more of a cheerleading exec.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As a multi-hyphenate performer, Sondhi\u2019s real strength is writing dialogue, although she found it easier to write for younger characters or Rachita than for the white, \u2018top brass\u2019 officers in the series (\u201cTo put myself in the place of a white, straight, middle-aged, middle-class man is probably the hardest one [to write for],\u201d she laughs). <\/span><\/p>\n

But her time on Line of Duty helped her tune into the distinctive, \u2018police procedural patter\u2019 required for a drama like DI Ray.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy ear is tuned into \u2013 because my last on-screen acting job was Line of Duty, so obviously, that was still very much present in my head. And so that must have helped in some way. And just kind of trusting that procedural stuff can be interesting. Even the very, very heavy police stuff, there\u2019s a way to do it to engage people.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jed Mercurio told her that she\u2019d be surprised that viewers \u201cactually do find procedural stuff more interesting than you think,\u201d including the nitty-gritty details or terminology.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I had to trust him on that one, because I wasn\u2019t sure,\u201d she adds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Loved this\u00a0Big RT Interview<\/a>? Check out these\u2026<\/strong><\/h3>\n