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Coronation Street to have first Muslim family

Producers say it was "bizarre" that it had not included a Muslim family in 50 years of Coronation Street.

2014-01-15_0137UK soap Coronation Street will feature a Muslim family for the first time in more than 50 years

Producers admitted it was “bizarre” that it had not included a Muslim family before.

The characters will be relatives of Kal Nazir — a personal trainer played by actor Jimi Mistry — who joined the show set in Weatherfield, a fictional suburb of Manchester, two months ago.

They will include his two children, his mother and his father, who will be played by Marc Anwar, last seen alongside Tom Hanks in the Hollywood drama Captain Phillips.

“Kal and his son and daughter live with his mum and dad so we’re going to bring them on to the Street,” producer Stuart Blackburn said.

“And that’ll be the first Muslim family that Corrie’s ever had. Bizarre isn’t it?”

The ITV show has aired in Australia on UKTV and 7TWO.

BBC’s EastEnders introduced a Muslim family in 2007.

Source: Yahoo

5 Responses

  1. I would rather that soap operas or any drama that is predominantly written by non-religious persons to steer clear of religion as a theme or dramatic motif. Christian representation in contemporary Western drama is scarce as is, and I’d hate to see how they’d butcher already fragile representations of the Muslim community by falsely representing them without the perspective from actual Muslims.

    I find dramas about religious families that deal with conflicting moral dilemmas to be tremendously interesting (Big Love being the only good example that springs to mind, at least as far as television series are concerned), and I’d love to see more of it on TV.

  2. As a Corrie Fan, I am surprise however they do have a Asian Family(The Alahan) however a Islamic family they never had which is very surprising for me as well.

    Sillygosty- That was the Osman family. It was a Turkish Dad(Ali Osman) who married a English lady(Sue) They owned the Cafe and Taxi Company.

  3. EastEnders had a Turkish/Cypriot family at the very beginning of its run, and I suppose that they could have been considered to be Muslim by default (even though the morality of the characters would indicate anything but!), however, they were written out four years after the premiere of the show in 1989 and have not been seen since.

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