Rakhee Thakrar

Rakhee Thakrar (born 29 February 1984^[1]) is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Shabnam Masood in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders (2014–2016) and Emily Sands in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education (2019–2023). She also voices the Eighth Doctor's companion Bliss in Big Finish's Doctor Who: The Time War audio dramas.

Rakhee Thakrar
Thakrar at The Asian Awards in 2016
Born	(1984-02-29) 29 February 1984 (age 41) Leicester, Leicestershire, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	2004–present
Television	EastEnders Sex Education
Spouse	Vikash Bhai ​ (m. 2017)​

Early life and education

Thakrar was born on a Leap Year Day in 1984, and grew up in the St Matthew's area^[2] of Leicester, England. She is of Indian descent,^[3] and both parents worked in factories.^[2]

She attended Taylor Primary School^[2] and Soar Valley College.^[3][4] She took drama as a GCSE subject and acted in a play at the Phoenix Theatre. As a teenager, Thakrar became involved with Hathi Productions, a theatre club based in Leicester run by Jez Simons, her drama teacher, who has written for EastEnders.^[2]

She was going to study textile design, but decided to take a year out, which led to several roles on the stage as well as learning a lot about the theatre production.^[2]

Career

Acting

In 2004, Thakrar landed the role of Roopa Chauhan in the radio drama Silver Street, which was broadcast on the BBC Asian Network.^[5] Thakrar played the role from the first episode in 2004, to the last episode in 2010. In 2006, Thakrar made her first TV appearance in BBC drama Banglatown Banquet. Thakrar went on to feature in a number of TV series including Doctors, Holby City, Peep Show and, notably, played a lead character in the British-Asian drama Cloud 9.

Thakrar was cast in EastEnders in 2013 and made her first on-screen appearance on 13 January 2014. Her character, Shabnam Masood, had previously been played by Zahra Ahmadi from 2007 to 2008.^[6] Thakrar's most famous storyline while portraying Shabnam was when the character gave birth to a stillborn son, with viewers, critics and co-workers praising her performance throughout the storyline. Due to her performance in the storyline, Thakrar has subsequently become an ambassador for the stillbirth charity, Sands. Thakrar left EastEnders in 2015 and was last seen onscreen on 5 February 2016, following Shabnam's failed marriage to Kush Kazemi (Davood Ghadami).^[7]

In 2019, she began portraying the role of Emily Sands in the Netflix comedy drama series Sex Education.^[8] (2019–2023).^[9]

She also voices the Eighth Doctor's companion Bliss in Big Finish's Doctor Who: The Time War audio dramas.^[10]

Journalism

In 2004, Thakrar was one of 20 young people recruited to the Leicester Mercury's Pathfinder scheme. Run in conjunction with Leicester City Council, it enabled a team of young journalists to spend 10 months gaining an introduction to print journalism and reporting on their communities. During this time, Thakrar wrote articles on subjects such as the influence Bollywood has had on Leicester, as well as the peculiar situation of being born on 29 February.^[2]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	Tourettes Haiku	Sunny	Short film
2007	Circle	Tina Parekh
2012	TYU's Company	GGS Voice
2016	Juliet Remembered	Deena
2018	Love, Sex and side effects	Rosie
2019	Running Naked	Jade
	Those Four Walls	Neha
	End-O	Dr. Woman	Short film
2020	23 Walks	Registrar
2023	Wonka	Lottie Bell
2024	September Says

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	Banglatown Banquet	Rozena	Television film
2007	Doctors	Safeena Abbasi	Episode: "Losing It All"
2009	No Signal!	Various	Series 1: Episode 7
2010	Doctors	Jasmin Sharma	Episode: "Pound of Flesh"
2010–2011	Holby City	Sarita Dubashi	3 episodes
2011	Page Eight	Muna Hammami	Television film
	DCI Banks	Lab Assistant	Episode: "Playing with Fire: Part 1"
	The Jury	Rashid's Sister	Series 2: Episode 1
2012	Peep Show	Waitress	Episode: "Business Secrets of the Pharaohs"
	Bollywood Carmen	Tannishta	Television film
2013	Cloud 9	Simran	Regular role; 112 episodes
2014–2016	EastEnders	Shabnam Masood	Regular role; 165 episodes
2014–2015	Children in Need		2 episodes
2019–2023	Sex Education	Emily Sands	Regular role; 18 episodes
2019	Four Weddings and a Funeral	Fatima	Recurring role; 6 episodes
2020	Criminal: UK	Nasreen Shah	Episode: "Julia"
2021	The Girl Before	Mia	Miniseries; 4 episodes
2022	Rules Of The Game	Maya Benshaw	Miniseries; 4 episodes[11]
	Karen Pirie	Bel Richmond	Miniseries; 3 episodes[12]
2024	Finders Keepers[13]	DS Carole Doyle

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2013	Invizimals: The Alliance	Jazmin
2013–2014	Invizimals

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2017	Astronauts of Hartlepool	Nadia	Vault Festival
2018	There or Here	Neera	Park Theatre, London[14][15]
2022	Paradise Now!	Laurie	Bush Theatre, London

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Result	Ref.
2014	TV Choice Awards	Best Soap Newcomer	Nominated	[16]
2015	Inside Soap Awards	Best Actress	Nominated	[17]
2015	Asian Media Awards	Best TV Character	Won	[18]
2015	Digital Spy Reader Awards	Best Actor	Third	[19]
2016	21st National Television Awards	Serial Drama Performance	Shortlisted	[20]
2016	2016 British Soap Awards	Best Actress	Shortlisted	[21]