page_title: Mandeep Dhillon
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Mandeep Dhillon / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: The Bush Theatre pub (until October 2011) on the corner of Goldhawk Road and Shepherd's Bush Green. The building to the right is the Shepherd's Bush Empire, once the BBC TV Theatre. Beyond that is a Walkabout pub and then a bingo hall. Busy place, Shepherd's Bush Green west side!
context_page_description: Mandeep Dhillon is a British actress who has appeared in stage, television, film and radio productions, including Some Dogs Bite, and the BBC Three comedy TV series Some Girls and Fried.
  She featured in the British romantic comedy Finding Fatimah in 2017, and as Constable Lizbyet Corwi in The City and the City in 2018. She also appears as Sandy in Ricky Gervais's Netflix Original dark-comedy After Life, having previously worked with Gervais on David Brent: Life on the Road.
context_section_description: In 2011 Dhillon played a school student in The Knowledge at the Bush Theatre. The production received a positive review in The Times, with Dominic Maxwell saying that "There [was] not a whiff of stage school" to the actors, including Dhillon, portraying the students. Also in 2011 at the Bush Theatre, Dhillon appeared in Little Platoons, a drama about free schools. A radio production featuring Dhillon and the rest of the original cast was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. The following year, at the same venue, she starred in Repentance, as a young Muslim woman conflicted about her romantic relationship with a non-Muslim. The Daily Telegraph's Charles Spencer felt that Dhillon gave a "touching performance" in a play that "potently catches the clash between faith and sexual desire". The Financial Times called Dhillon's performance "powerfully acted", and Time Out said she was "luminous".
  After appearances in The Mimic (2011) and The Thick of It (2012), she starred as the character Saz Kaur, a sarcastic high school student from a strict Indian family, in Some Girls, which aired on BBC Three from 2012 to 2014. Dhillon went on to appear as a guest character in seven episodes of the 2014 TV series 24: Live Another Day, alongside Kiefer Sutherland. The low budget romantic comedy A Wonderful Christmas Time was shot over five days and released in 2014, with the actors improvising around a scripted outlines. Dhillon was in the main cast as Mandi, a friend of the lead Cherie played by Laura Haddock. Screen International described Dhillon as "impressive" in its review.
  In the pilot for the comedy television series Fried, Dhillon's character was called Anal. In the main series the character's name is Amara, and she is from a wealthy family, having got a job in a fried chicken shop at the behest of her family who want her to appreciate the value of money.
  Dhillon's performance as Meena in the stage adaptation of Anita and Me, which played at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and then the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 2015, was praised by Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph as one of the "spirited performances" given by the main cast, although he felt that the production needed further development. Michael Billington in The Guardian had a similar view, giving the play a middle-rated 3 stars out of 5, whilst highlighting the "good work" done by Mandeep Dhillon and her co-star Jalleh Alizadeh.
  She auditioned for Ricky Gervais's film David Brent: Life on the Road (2016) and won the part of a receptionist after Gervais asked her what she thought of the David Brent character and she replied "he scares me." In 2017 she appeared in the British romantic comedy film Finding Fatimah. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film had an approval rating of 13% based on 8 critics' reviews as of August 2020, with an average rating of 4.12/10. Umbreen Ali in Asian Image gave the movie a positive review, saying that "the charismatic Nayna [played by Dhillon] delivers her dialogue with perfectly projected dramatic nuance."
  Dhillon played the main character Constable Lizbyet Corwi in of the four part BBC Drama The City and the City in 2018, alongside David Morrissey who played her police partner, Inspector Tyador Borlú. In the show, the inhabitants of two cities are all required to "unsee" people from the other city, with failing to do this being known as "breaching" – a serious crime. the two officers, from the city of Besźel, investigate a murder where the victim turns out to be from the other city, UI Qoma. Dhillon said in a 2018 interview that she enjoyed the role and working with Morrisey, one of the reasons being that "To actually play a lead, a female lead, and to have a male cop and a female cop, and there not be any sexual tension ... we could have bants and have that good friendship vibe." She also spoke positively of her perception that the show used colour blind casting. The Evening Standard praised Dhillon's performance, and said that she "[stood out] as somehow simultaneously plucky and deadpan".
  In the black comedy series After Life
caption: The Bush Theatre (pictured in 2005)
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