Stargazer: Anjana Vasan, Sheheryar Munawar Siddiqui & Pranav Bhasin

A Lady of Many Parts

Mrs Gardiner is the one bright spot in Elizabeth Bennet’s life in Pride and Prejudice, apart from her sister Jane. In a soon-to-be released Netflix series adaptation of the novel, the character will be played by Anjana Vasan. An Indian-origin Singaporean actor, who was born in Chennai, Vasan has had a storied TV career, including roles in the longrunning BBC America and BBC Three hit series Killing Eve and more recently in We Are Lady Parts. The actor is also set to be part of a star-studded cast in Season 6 of Only Murders in the Building.

Heartthrob Alert

Abu Bakr, Sheheryar Munawar Siddiqui’s Harvard-educated character in Pakistani series Dar-e-Nijaat is the flavour of the season, with women across the border swooning at his sight in the same way they once did for Fawad Khan. Abu Bakr seems to command that level of attention for being sensitive and patient with his irritable wife, Zaryab, who cannot seem to recover from the heartbreak of her first love.

Filming Humanity

It’s ten minutes long but says more about the threat of AI to humanity than anything else. We Were Here by Pranav Bhasin is a wonderful short film on a society of uncles getting together to counter their replacement by robots. So while one uncle works as a TV satellite dish, another plays the reverse camera of a car, and yet another is a microwave. The film has won a series of celebrity endorsements, notably from Elsinore star and Fleabag’s ‘Hot Priest’ Andrew Scott, who joins Priyanka Chopra Jonas as the film's executive producer.