# Tanika Gupta

Tanika Gupta MBE FRSL (born 1 December 1963) is a British playwright. Apart from her work for the theatre, she has also written scripts for television, film and radio plays.

## Early life

Tanika Gupta was born in London to immigrant parents from Kolkata, India, where her family had their origins. As a child, Gupta performed Tagore dance dramas with her parents. Her mother Gairika Gupta was an Indian classically trained dancer, and her father Tapan Gupta was a singer. The Indian revolutionary Dinesh Gupta was her great uncle.
After attending Copthall Comprehensive School in London and then Mill Hill School for her A levels, Gupta graduated from Oxford University with a Modern History degree. After Oxford, her political commitment found expression in her work for an Asian women's refuge in Manchester. In 1988, she married David Archer an anti-poverty activist and ActionAid's current Head of Tax Justice and Public Services, whom she met at university. She and her husband then moved to London where Gupta was initially a community worker in Islington, writing in her spare time.

## Career

Over the past 25 years Tanika has written over 25 stage plays that have been produced in major theatres across the UK. She has also written 30 radio plays for the BBC and several original television dramas, as well as scripts for EastEnders, Grange Hill and The Bill. The Waiting Room (produced for the National Theatre in 2000) was an early career highpoint with Indian film star Shabana Azmi performing on the stage in London for the first time.
Gupta's 2013 play The Empress, about Abdul Karim and Queen Victoria opened in Stratford upon Avon and is now on the GCSE curriculum along with her adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House, which was first performed at Hammersmith Lyric in 2018. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Dominic Cavendish praised The Empress, saying: "This fascinating new theatre production has got 'make this into a movie' written all over it."
Her play Lions and Tigers performed at the Sam Wannamaker in Shakespeare's Globe Theatre tells the remarkable story set in the 1930s of her great uncle, Dinesh Gupta, an Indian freedom fighter. Lions and Tigers is now published in Methuen's series of Modern Classics. Praise for Lions and Tigers singled out the "intimate storytelling, where Gupta's writing is at its most playful and potent" for particular note. Other notable plays include Sugar Mummies (Royal Court Theatre 2006); Gladiator Games (Sheffield Crucible Theatre 2006); Hobson's Choice (Young Vic 2001 and Manchester Royal Exchange 2018). Her most recent productions are Mirror on the Moor (Royal Court Living Newspaper, April 2021), and The Overseas Student (Hammersmith Lyric, June 2021).

## Personal life

Gupta and her husband have two daughters, Nandini (born 1991), Niharika (born 1993), and a son Malini (born 2000).

## Works
### Theatre plays

| Year | Title |
| 1995 | Voices on the Wind (NT Studio) |
| 1997 | Skeleton (Soho) |
| 1997 | A River Sutra (NT Studio / 3 Mill Island) |
| 1998 | On The Couch with Enoch (BAC) |
| 2000 | The Waiting Room (National Theatre) |
| 2002 | Sanctuary (National Theatre) |
| 2002 | Inside Out (Arcola) |
| 2003 | Hobson's Choice (Young Vic) |
| 2003 | Fragile Land (Hampstead) |
| 2004 | The Country Wife (Watford) |
| 2006 | Gladiator Games (Sheffield Crucible) |
| 2006 | Catch (Royal Court) |
| 2006 | Sugar Mummies (Royal Court) |
| 2008 | Meet The Mukherjees (Bolton Octagon) |
| 2008 | White Boy (Soho) |
| 2010 | Great Expectations (Watford) |
| 2012 | Wah Wah Girls (Saddlers Wells / Peacock Theatre) |
| 2013 | Love'N'Stuff (Stratford East) |
| 2013 | The Empress (RSC) |
| 2015 | Anita and Me (Birmingham Rep) |
| 2016 | A Midsummer Night's Dream (dramaturg at The Globe) |
| 2017 | Lions and Tigers (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London) |
| 2017 | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Hull Truck) |
| 2018 | Hobsons's Choice (Royal Exchange) |
| 2019 | A Doll's House (Lyric Hammersmith, London) |
| 2019 | Red Dust Road (National Theatre Scotland/Edinburgh International Festival) |
| 2019 | Hobson's Choice (Manchester Royal Exchange) |
| 2019 | Bones (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) |
| 2021 | Mirror on the Moor (Royal Court, London) |
| 2021 | The Overseas Student (Lyric Hammersmith, London) |

### Radio plays

| Year | Title |
| 1991 | Asha (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1994 | Badal and his Bike (BBC Radio 5) |
| 1994 | Kiss Me Quick (BBC Radio 5) |
| 1996 | Pankhiraj (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1997 | Ananda Sananda (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1997 | Kiss Me Quick (BBC Radio 5) |
| 1997 | The Bounty Hunter (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1997 | Skeleton (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1998 | Voices On The Wind (BBC World Service) |
| 1998 | Red Oleanders (BBC Radio 3) |
| 1998 | Westway (BBC World Service) |
| 1999 | Muse of Fusion (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1999 | Coat (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1999 | Waistland (BBC Radio 4) |
| 1999 | The Queen's Retreat (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2000 | The Eternal Bubble (BBC World Service) |
| 2000 | The Secret (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2000 | The Book of Secrets (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2001 | Betrayal: The Trial of William Davidson (BBC) |
| 2001 | Stowaway (BBC) |
| 2002 | A Second Chance (BBC Radio 3) |
| 2003 | The Parting (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2004 | The God of Small Things (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2005 | Chitra (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2008 | Rudolpho's Zest (BBC Radio 3) |
| 2008 | Silver Street (BBC Asian Network) |
| 2010 | Rescue Me (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2012 | A Doll's House (BBC Radio 3) |
| 2013 | Pather Panchali (BBC Radio 4) |
| 2014 | Baby Farming (BBC Radio 3) |

### Filmography

| Year | Title | Notes | Credit |
| 1995 | Flight | TV film | Writer |
| 1995 | Bideshi | Short | Writer |
| 1995 | Siren Spirits | 1 episode: "Bideshi" | Writer |
| 1999 | The Fiancée | Short | Writer |
| 2000 | EastEnders | 4 episodes: inc "17 January 2000" | Writer |
| 1997–2000 | Grange Hill | 7 episodes: "20:19", "20:20", "21:15", "22.9", "22:10", "23:5", "23:6" | Writer |
| 2001 | Crossroads | Unknown episodes | Writer |
| 2001 | The Bill | 1 episode: "Complicity (Part 2)" | Writer |
| 2002 | The Lives of Animals | TV film | Screenplay |
| 2006 | Banglatown Banquet | TV film | Screenplay |
| 2010 | Non-Resident | Short | Writer |
| 2018 | Pritilata | Monologue as part of Snatches series, BBC | Writer |

## Awards and recognition

In 2008, Gupta was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours for her services to drama. In June 2016 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2018, Gupta was awarded with the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Drama for her play Lions and Tigers.
* EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award for Best Television Production) (screenplay), for Flight (1998)
* John Whiting Award, for The Waiting Room (2000)
* Asian Women of Achievement Award (Arts and Culture category) (2003)
* EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award for Best Play) (adaptation), for Hobson's Choice (2004)
* Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, for Fragile Land/Hobson's Choice (2004)
* Amnesty International UK Media Awards (radio play) Chitra (2005)
* Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Birthday Honours (2008)
* BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Adaptation, for A Doll's House (2013)
* Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2016)
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Drama for Lions and Tigers (2018)