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Tandoori Nights

Tandoori Nights
GenreSitcom
Written byFarrukh Dhondy
Directed byJon Amiel
StarringSaeed Jaffrey
Tariq Yunus
Rita Wolf
Zohra Sehgal
ComposerNicholas Carr
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series2
No. of episodes12
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkChannel 4
Release4 July 1985 (1985-07-04) –
13 November 1987 (1987-11-13)
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Tandoori Nights is a television sitcom that was broadcast on Channel 4 between 4 July 1985 and 13 November 1987. It consisted of two series of six episodes each. The series was directed by Jon Amiel and written by Farrukh Dhondy. It is the story of two rival restaurants in London, and starred Saeed Jaffrey, Tariq Yunus, Rita Wolf and Zohra Sehgal. It was Channel 4's first Asian comedy series.

After the sitcom had been commissioned to be written, Farrukh Dhondy himself became Channel 4's commissioning editor for multicultural programmes.[1] Meera Syal wrote an episode for the sitcom (4 July 1985).[2]

Tandoori Nights traded on some pre-existing Asian stereotypes: an Indian restaurant setting; a conniving businessman (Jimmy Sharma, played by Saeed Jaffrey) who views dating white women as 'social climbing'; a rebellious daughter (played by Rita Wolf); and a bumbling servant-fool (Alaudin, played by Tariq Yunus).[3]

  1. ^ Emmanuel Sampath Nelson (1993). Writers of the Indian diaspora: a bio-bibliographical critical sourcebook. Greenwood Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-313-27904-1.
  2. ^ Claire Tylee (2000). "The Black Explorer: Female Identity in Black Feminist Drama on British Television in 1992". In Bruce Carson; Margaret Llewellyn-Jones (eds.). Frames and Fictions on Television: The Politics of Identity Within Drama. Intellect Books. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-84150-050-8.
  3. ^ Sarita Malik (2002). Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television. SAGE Publications. pp. 99–100. ISBN 978-0-7619-7027-9.

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