Nitin Ganatra 'frustrated' with EastEnders

Nitin Ganatra 'frustrated' with EastEnders (Image credit: BBC)

Nitin Ganatra has admitted that he sometimes gets frustrated working on EastEnders. The Mumbai Calling star has played postman-turned-caterer Masood Ahmed in the BBC One soap for two years but wonders if his character will ever be given big storylines - adding that he thinks, in general, ethnic minority characters on TV get worse storylines. Nitin said: "The Mitchells have been there for a very, very long time and they've got that whole gangster thing behind them - The Masoods don't have that." He continued: "They've got much more of a Pauline and Arthur Fowler with them, a very domestic story, and domestic stories don't necessarily take the same kind of gritty, upfront drama that the Mitchells may have. "But certainly when you compare EastEnders to my other work, as a writer, as an actor and as a producer, I do enjoy that sort of work and EastEnders does have those sort of frustrations for me because even two years down the line I'm not used to that way of working. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. I do." Nitin and Nina Wadia, who plays his wife Zainab, won Best Couple at this year's British Soap Awards, but the actor was not overwhelmed by it. He said: "It's nice to be appreciated. I've been doing this for a while. I've done lots and lots of projects which I've been really proud of, but never won awards for, which I think I should have. "As Asian actors, because you're minority actors, you don't necessarily get the material that is worthy of an award."

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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.