‘The Split Up’ – Find your voice, find your tribe, sisters can do it – Kasheina Vencatasawmy
Want to work in television? Wondered what it takes to get an Indian family based drama into people’s living rooms? Production company Sister head of development talks compelling characters, getting into the room and how stories like this matter…
FOR ANYONE who loved the recent six part BBC TV family legal drama, ‘The Split Up’ there is great news – it will return to our screens.
No date has been set for this new instalment. The BBC announced that it had commissioned a second series shortly after the first one finished screening in the late autumn.
Not only is it a sweet triumph for all those who worked on ‘The Split Up’ but it was also very personally meaningful for TV production executive Kasheina Vencatasawmy.
She is head of development at Sister Pictures – the production company responsible for the original TV blockbuster series ‘The Split’ which starred Nicola Walker and is also set among a family firm of solicitors in Manchester.
Vencatasawmy was not part of the initial team that considered what next for ‘The Split‘ – the last series of that franchise (as it is now) was a Christmas special set in Barcelona and screened in Christmas 2024. Written by Abi Morgan, that series racked up 5.15 million views, officially – a huge number for a drama.
“It had all performed very well for Sister Pictures and the BBC and there was a split-shaped hole for everyone – we love relationship dramas, we love family dramas so everyone was keen to think about how there could be another iteration,” Vencatasawmy, head of development at Sister told www.asianculturevulture.com just after the series had finished airing and before it was commissioned for a second series.
Starring Ritu Arya, best known for Netflix’s global smash, ‘The Umbrella Academy‘, as Aria, the character is poised to take full control of the legal firm Kishan Law from her retiring widower father, Dhruv, played by Sanjeev Bhasker (‘Unforgotten’), when a lot happens. Engaged to her childhood sweetheart Neal Sharma (Danny Ashok) she discovers impulsive fling Luke (Dimitri Leonidas) has been employed by her father and still has strong feelings for her. Brother Kav (Arian Nik) and sister Maya (Aysha Kala) also have their own challenges and viewers warmed to the characters’ shenanigans and how they manage them as individuals and as a family which is well off, well established and has standards to uphold.
Vencatasawmy explained that the BBC put writer Ursula Rani Sarma (‘Delicious’) in touch with Sister as she was already working with the corporation on a family based drama.
“It unlocked something – they wanted to explore something that hadn’t been explored much or at all on screen – it allowed them to have a new format, a new family and explore a new kind of background and heritage.”
She wasn’t really involved in the initial talks between head writer Sarma, the BBC and Sister but once it became a clear the BBC were willing to see it through to the screen, she asked to get her hands dirty as associate producer.
“To jump into the writers room was an opportunity I couldn’t miss, so too was the opportunity to shape a South Asian or Indian family drama that hadn’t been done before,” she outlined to us.
As head of development, she reads a lot of scripts and what gets her excited professionally is something that hits you in the face and makes you want to share that with her colleagues.
“It’s the stand up test, if we’re reading something and it’s really spoken to us in some way and we stand up and we go and tell one of our colleagues about it immediately.”
Another element is characters everyone can care about, she put forward.
“If you can invest in the characters, then you’ll follow them whatever story they’re in. A lot of our conversations early on were about the central relationships – why do we care about these characters? How can we shape the plot around them and get viewers to invest in these characters arcs.”
Another important criteria is the writer’s voice and perspective, something different and original, when pitching as a new writer.
“It’s just a very warm relationship drama, and those are few and far between, and they are hard to do, ” she told us as something of a conclusion to that part of our conversation about the programme.
Vencatasawmy grew up in the UK and Sweden and her family are originally from Mauritius. She read English at university and knew from quite early into her degree that she wanted a role in a creative part of TV. She joined Warp Films initially – its kudos has become international as it made the global Netflix smash hit, ‘Adolescence‘.
At Warp Films, Vecataswamy went from office runner to head of development over six years – a rapid rise – just how did she do it?
She oozed enthusiasm and was prepared to make the tea, take notes and be that helpful person every office needs. She went beyond the immediate call of duty and made herself very useful.
“When I was the office runner, I was taking scripts out of the script bin and saying, ‘Oh, can I read this?’”
The response? Read these other scripts instead, her bosses told her. Be useful, and be present – don’t go through the motions or play the part – be it and don’t hold back, if given the reigns to gallop, she intimated.
Openings are just that and sometimes you go sideways, not forward or end up in something that isn’t quite you. Vencatasawmy was clear: don’t get bogged down or dispirited, but make sure your destination is set, even if the path diverts or deflects – have your eyes still set on that house over the hill, even if takes a deviation or two.
“Take everything as a learning experience,” she proffered, “but still be clear about where you want to end up.”
Getting a second series of mainstream drama with Asian characters back, centre and front is a major step forward, we feel.
“I think that it’s amazing that stories like ‘The Split Up‘ can exist, but I think there’s still a lot of work to be done in front of camera and behind camera,” said Vencatasawmy about the current diversity deficit in TV generally.
Sister managed to bring a new dynamism to family drama and partly because it backed something different and original – yet again and somewhat agains the odds in primetime family drama – there’s no crime as such…
“There are no dead bodies, or missing kids,” Vencatasawmy said tellingly. “It’s just a very warm relationship drama, and those are few and far between, and they are hard to do.”
You can watch The Split Up and The Split on BBC I-player if you are in the UK and have a TV licence
Previously
https://asianculturevulture.com/the-split-up-ritu-arya-leads-in-bbc-modern-asian-family-drama/
