Demons of the Punjab

Horseback in the Punjab!

One episode (Demons of the Punjab)
First broadcast: Nov 11 2018
Audience for story: 8.00m

REGULAR CAST

Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor) Born Jun 17 1982 Click here for Jodie Whittaker's entry on Twice Upon a Time

Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan) Born Jan 5 1988 Click here for Mandip Gill's entry on The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair) Born Jul 23 1992 Click here for Tosin Cole's entry on The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Bradley Walsh (Graham O'Brien) Born Jun 4 1960 Click here for Bradley Walsh's entry on The Woman Who Fell to Earth

GUEST CAST

Nathalie Cuzner (Kisar) Born 1975
Doctor Who credits
Played: Cat nun in New Earth and its TARDISode (2006, uncredited)
Played: Extra in Rise of the Cybermen/ The Age of Steel (2006, uncredited), Smith and Jones (2007, uncredited), The End of Time (2009/10, uncredited)

Played: Futurekind in Utopia (2007, uncredited), The Sound of Drums (2007, uncredited)
Played: Silurian in The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood (2010, uncredited), The Pandorica Opens (2010, uncredited)
Played: Mrs Rossiter Peg Doll in Night Terrors (2011, uncredited)
Played: Handbot in The Girl Who Waited (2011, uncredited)
Played: Chamber droid in Deep Breath (2014, uncredited)
Played: Kisar in Demons of the Punjab (2018)
Career highlights
Nathalie's other work includes The Private Life of a Masterpiece (2005) and Summer Scars (2007), as well as playing the protocol droid PZ-4CO (the blue one seen with Lieutenant Connix in the Rebel base) in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2014). Nathalie also played various monsters at the 2010 and 2013 Doctor Who Proms.
Facts
Nathalie's "day job" is as a dance fitness instructor, yoga teacher and hypopressive practitioner. Here she is on Twitter.

Leena Dhingra (Nani Umbreen) Born pre-1947
Doctor Who credits
Played: Miss Chandrakala in The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008)
Played: Nani Umbreen in Demons of the Punjab (2018)

Career highlights
Leena's CV includes Moving Story (1994), London Bridge (1995), East is East (1995), The Chippendales Murder (2000), Silent Witness (2003), Prime Suspect 6 (2003), Grease Monkeys (2004), Coronation Street (2001/04), EastEnders (2007), Place of Execution (2008), Holby City (2009), Citizen Khan (2014), Stella (2016), Casualty (1996/2017/2019), Man Like Mobeen (2017) and Ackley Bridge (2021).

Facts

Leena is also a writer, and said that appearing in Demons of the Punjab "unexpectedly shifted an emotional block and released my writer self" (Leena herself came to the UK following the Partition of India in 1947). In 2021, she published her latest book, Exhumation: The Life and Death of Madan Lal Dhingra.

Barbara Fadden (Almak) Born 1979
Doctor Who credits
Played: Guest in The Lazarus Experiment (2007, uncredited)
Played: Neighbour in The Sound of Drums (2007, uncredited)
Played: Journalist in Partners in Crime (2008, uncredited)
Played: Soldier in The Doctor's Daughter (2008, uncredited), Turn Left (2008, uncredited), Planet of the Dead (2009, uncredited)
Played: Silurian in The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood (2010, uncredited), The Pandorica Opens (2010, uncredited), A Good Man Goes to War (2011, uncredited - double for Vastra)
Played: Soldier Peg Doll in Night Terrors (2011, uncredited)
Played: Handbot in The Girl Who Waited (2011, uncredited)
Played: Spectator in The Wedding of River Song (2011, uncredited)
Played: Cleric in The Time of the Doctor (2013, uncredited)
Played: Chamber droid in Deep Breath (2014, uncredited)
Played: Dream Crab in Last Christmas (2014, uncredited)
Played: Almak in Demons of the Punjab (2018)

Played: Weeping Angel in Flux (2021)
Career highlights
Barbara's only other screen work includes being a creature and droid puppeteer on Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2014), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2016), Solo: A Star Wars Story (2017) and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2018), and a monster at the 2010 and 2013 Doctor Who Proms.

Emma Fielding (Voice of Kisar) Born Oct 7 1964
Career highlights
Emma debuted in the 1992 Screenplay Dead Poets' Society, followed by roles in Tell Tale Hearts (1992), Poirot (1993), Kavanagh QC (1996), The Scarlet Tunic (1998), Pandaemonium (2000), Big Bad World (1999-2001), The Discovery of Heaven (2001), Green-Eyed Monster (2002), Waking the Dead (2004), The Ghost Squad (2005), The Other Man (2008), Cranford (2007-09), Midsomer Murders (2010), The Great Ghost Rescue (2011), Father Brown (2014), DCI Banks (2014), Foyle's War (2015), This is England '90 (2015), Dark Angel (2016), Close to the Enemy (2016), EastEnders (2018), Unforgotten (2018), Les Miserables (2018-19), Years and Years (2019) and Van der Valk (2020-22).

Awards

1993: Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer (Arcadia & The School for Wives)
Facts
Emma has been nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award twice. She abandoned a place studying law at Cambridge University in favour of picking watermelons in a West Bank kibbutz and working as an usherette at the Oxford Apollo! She is also a prolific video game and audiobook voice artiste. Here she is on Twitter.

Ravin J Ganatra (Hakim Khan)
Doctor Who credits
Played: Neil in Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts (2006)
Played: Mahajan in Torchwood: Golden Age (2009, radio play)
Played: Hakim Khan in Arachnids in the UK (2018), Demons of the Punjab (2018), Spyfall (2020)
Career highlights
Ravin made his debut in No Worries (1993), then Casualty (1996), Prime Suspect 5 (1996), The Brittas Empire (1997), Holding On (1997), Dalziel and Pascoe (2001), Nighty Night (2004), The Fugitives (2005), EastEnders (2006), Britz (2007), Dappers (2010), Rev (2010), Hollyoaks (2012), Count Arthur Strong (2013), In the Club (2014/16), The Boy with the Topknot (2017), Seven and Me (2018-19), Cheat (2018), Four Weddings and a Funeral (2019), War of the Worlds (2019) and The Canterville Ghost (2021).
Facts
Ravin also runs his own theatre company, Guruji Productions. Here's Ravin on Twitter.

Shobna Gulati (Najia Khan) Born Aug 7 1966
Doctor Who credits
Played: Najia Khan in Arachnids in the UK (2018), Demons of the Punjab (2018), Spyfall (2020)
Career highlights
Shobna rose to prominence in her debut screen role as Anita in the Victoria Wood sitcom Dinnerladies (1998-2000), then secured roles in EastEnders (2000), New Street Law (2006), Where the Heart Is (2006), Magnolia (2006), Coming Up (2008), Junkhearts (2011), The Slammer (2013), In the Club (2014), Paranoid (2016), Finding Fatimah (2017), River City (2017-18), Hold the Sunset (2018), On the Edge (2020), Adulting (2020), Murder, They Hope (2021) and Hullraisers (2022). She will be best remembered for playing Sunita Alahan in 671 episodes of the soap Coronation Street between 2001-13.

Awards

2024: Member of the order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to the cultural industries

Facts
Shobna performed as a dancer in the music video for Boy George's 1991 single Bow Down Mister. She also mimicked Diana Ross on an edition of Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes (2003). Here she in on Twitter.

Hamza Jeetooa (Manish)
Career highlights
Hamza debuted in the short film Void (2007), after which he secured roles in Luther (2011), Combat Hospital (2011), The Thick Of It (2012), Being Human (2013), Babylon (2014), Capital (2015), Silent Witness (2017), Ransom (2018), Our Girl (2018), Doc Martin (2019), Corner Shop Show (2014-19), Zomboat! (2019), Grantchester (2020) and Sandylands (2020). He has also directed and produced a number of short films himself, including Bin Men (2014), National Anthem (2017) and Behind the Likes (2018).
Facts
Hamza is married to actor and writer Natalie Perera. Here's his Twitter.

Shaheen Khan (Hasna) Born 1960
Career highlights
Shaheen made her debut in 1986's Love Match, followed by roles in Boon (1987), Partition (1987), Tandoori Nights (1987), Bhaji on the Beach (1993), Grange Hill (1994), Hollow Reed (1996), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Youth (2002), The Mistress of Spices (2005), Spooks (2006), My Life as a Popat (2004-07), Britz (2007), Everywhere and Nowhere (2011), The Five (2016), In the Club (2014-16), The Boy with the Topknot (2017), 71 episodes of Appletree House as Grandma Zainab (2017-19), The Reluctant Landlord (2018-19) and D.I Ray (2022).
Facts
Here's Shaheen, who is also a playwright, on Twitter.

Isobel Middleton (Voice of Almak) Born 1965
Career highlights
Isobel debuted as Frankie in Monster Cafe (1994), and has since found roles in Cracker (1994-95), Murder Most Horrid (1999), Dr Willoughby (1999), Barbara (2000), EastEnders (2002), The Story of Tracy Beaker (2002), My Family (2004), Family Affairs (2005), Mistresses (2008), Lewis (2009), The Fold (2013), Emmerdale (2014), Marcella (2016), Eric, Ernie and Me (2017), Doctors (2000/03/08/09/18), The Syndicate (2021) and Compulsion (2022).
Facts
In 2016, Isobel played the first gay woman to appear in radio soap The Archers (Anna Tregorran). Isobel is married to fellow actor Jane Hazlegrove.

Bhavnisha Parmar (Sonya Khan) Born 1986
Doctor Who credits
Played: Sonya Khan in Arachnids in the UK (2018), Demons of the Punjab (2018), Spyfall (2020), Can You Hear Me? (2020), Flux (2021)
Career highlights
Other work includes Penguin (2011), Darren Has a Breakdown (2014) and Guilty Pleasures (2016).

Amita Suman (Umbreen) Born Jul 19 1997
Career highlights
Nepalese Amita's further work includes Casualty (2018) and Ackley Bridge (2018). Recurring roles include Naya in The Outpost (2019-21) and Inej Ghafa in Shadow and Bone (2021-22).

Facts

Amita is a fan of the fantasy genre, and in a 2021 interview said she would love to play the Doctor. "As a brown actress, I never thought I'd have the opportunity to work in the fantasy genre on TV or film, even though it's always been my dream," she said.

Shane Zaza (Prem) Born Jan 8 1984
Doctor Who credits
Played: Atif in Army of Ghosts TARDISode (2006)
Played: Prem in Demons of the Punjab (2018)
Career highlights
Shane debuted in Messiah: The Harrowing (2005), followed by Waterloo Road (2006), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Murphy's Law (2006), 10 Days to War (2008), Mouth to Mouth (2009), Cleanskin (2012), Jadoo (2013), Plastic (2014), The Rezort (2015), Black Mirror (2016), The Mummy (2017), Will (2017), Press (2018), London Kills (2019), Endeavour (2020) and Everything I Know About Love (2022). He also played Shafiq Shah in 12 episodes of Happy Valley (2014-16).
Facts
Shane is married to actor Robyn Addison. Here he is on Twitter.

CREW

Vinay Patel (writer) Born Mar 16 1986
Doctor Who credits
Wrote: Demons of the Punjab (2018), Fugitive of the Judoon (2020)
Career highlights
Vinay's earliest screen work was as writer, director, producer and editor of the 2008 short film No, You'd Better Watch Out, after which he wrote material for Murdered by My Father (2016), The Good Karma Hospital (2017) and One Day (2023). He also writes for the theatre, including True Brits (2014), Free Fall (2014) and An Adventure (2018).
Awards
2017: Royal Television Society Award for Best Single Drama (Murdered by My Father) - shared with production team
Facts
Here's Vinay on Twitter.

Jamie Childs (director) Born 1988
Doctor Who credits
Directed: The Woman Who Fell to Earth (2018), Demons of the Punjab (2018), It Takes You Away (2018), The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos (2018), as well as the Thirteenth Doctor's reveal trailer (2017)
Career highlights
Jamie started out (credited as Jamie Catchpole Childs) as a production coordinator on First Cut: How to Snare a Millionaire (2009), moving on to second unit director on The Seasoning House (2012) and Poldark (2015). Dropping the "Catchpole", he worked as director on Vera (2016-17), Stan Lee's Lucky Man (2017), Next of Kin (2018), His Dark Materials (2019-20), The Sandman (2022) and Willow (2022). He is also an executive producer on The Sandman and Willow.
Facts
Jamie's career began when he won a competition to direct a trailer for Patricia Cornwell's novel Book of the Dead (2007), after which he directed several ad campaigns, including for the BBC (The White Queen, Strictly Come Dancing), ITV (Encore) and Dove soap's sponsorship of the Four Nations rugby tournament in 2016. In 2022, it was reported that Jamie was dating former Doctor Who companion Jenna Coleman after meeting on the set of The Sandman. Here's Jamie on Twitter.