Souad Faress

Souad Faress is a stage, radio, television and film actress. Born in Ghana to Irish and Syrian parents, she is now best known within the United Kingdom for her portrayal of the solicitor Usha Gupta, in the long-running BBC Radio 4 serial The Archers.

Souad Faress also appeared as the 'Old Rani' in The Sarah Jane Adventures serial The Mad Woman in the Attic in October 2009. 

She appeared in two episodes of the BBC serial I, Claudius (1976) as a slave girl (shouting fire) and as a dancer who at Messalina's (second and bigamous) marriage party realises troops are coming to arrest them. In another early BBC appearance, she played the character Selma in the Blake's 7 episode Horizon. Since then, she has had substantial roles in films such as My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Sixth Happiness (1997), as well as much stage work around the UK.

In October 2001 she appeared briefly in Coronation Street as Dev Alahan's mother Umila.

She has also been exploring playwrighting as a medium since before 2004.

She currently plays Jay Faldren's grandmother Maryam Shakiba in Casualty.

Faress also appeared in an episode of popular nursing drama No Angels as lead character, Anji Mittel's aunt Di.

Faress also appeared briefly as a hospital doctor in "The Dead of Jericho", the first episode of "Morse"

_{Biography from the wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA}