Neighbours welcomes the Kapoors

Neighbours will soon be welcoming a new family on to Ramsay Street. The soap's bosses have announced that the Kapoors - dad Ajay, wife Priya and daughter Rani - are going to be regular fixtures in Erinsborough in early 2012. Local councillor Ajay, played by Sachin Joab, has been appearing as a guest on the show since the summer, while his wife Priya (Menik Gooneratne) has also featured on screen as acting principal of local school Erinsborough High. Their teenage daughter, who is played by newcomer Coco-Jacinta Cherian, will join them on screen next year. "I'm delighted by how the Kapoors have been introduced. Viewers already know them because of their role in the community and link with other characters, and their cultural background is secondary," said Neighbours' executive producer Susan Bower. "We have had many individual characters who have been representative of Australia's diverse cultural landscape, however to have a family of Indian and Sri Lankan heritage join the neighbourhood is very exciting." The Kapoors are the first family to join the series since the Williams family arrived two years ago.

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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.