Art & Entertainment

A Saeed Way To Go

The man with the ,high spirits' is laid low by Granada TV

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A Saeed Way To Go
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Jaffrey's character, Ravi Desai, has been 'rested indefinitely,' a spokeswoman at Granada said. That unexpected, and as it now seems, endless rest came last week for the 61-year-old owner of a string of shops in fictional Weatherfield who would have 'a spring in his step and a twinkle in his eye.' His was the first Indian family to have moved into Coronation Street. Last week Jaffrey arrived at the studios of Granada TV only to be told that there will be no more of Ravi Desai.

Jaffrey had been delighted by the 'wonderful scripts, beautiful characters, truthful acting and magical twists' of the soap. Now, says wife and agent Jennifer, he is 'totally surprised'. Saeed Jaffrey himself offered no comment; under the terms of the agreement with Granada, he cannot, because he still remains under contract to them. But that contract does not silence his wife. 'They can't stop me from talking,' she says. And went on to suggest that the new producer for the soap, Jane Macnaught, was trying to make a big impression on everyone.

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'It is sad because the character had only just started to develop. He didn't have a lot to do at first, but recently his role has been expanding. The writers said they really enjoyed writing his part.' Jennifer said. 'He went in one day and found he'd been written out,' she adds. Saeed Jaffrey was said to be deeply disappointed and felt he was just used by the soap to win publicity.

It was still not clear why Jaffrey was so suddenly dropped. Days before he was sacked, Saeed Jaffrey was involved in a drunken argument with two women on a train. The women confronted him for misbehaviour and called in the police. Jaffrey was let off with a caution. It was not for the first time that Saeed Jaffrey has been in trouble after getting drunk: the man seems invariably to work himself into a notoriously intoxicated condition on the party circuit.

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Granada denies the decision had anything to do with that particular incident on the train. 'The decision was minuted two days before that incident,' a spokeswoman at Granada said. 'We have been here for 40 years and many actors have had high-profile brushes with the law, drugs etc,' she said. Granada did not treat Jaffrey any differently from other actors, and he was not fired for such reasons, she adds.

It was a role that Jaffrey had hoped to retire nicely into, much like Ravi Desai in his business. 'For the past 15-odd years I had been flying back and forth between India and England a dozen times a year,' Jaffrey said when he was given that role late last year. 'After having done about 100 films over there I felt it was time to stop. But I was really thrilled when Granada asked me to join.' He is now said to be looking for a role in East Enders, that other popular soap produced by the bbc.

But it seems that Jaffrey's fight is more against himself. He has been known to make remarks that many women consider sexist and offensive. 'There are some women who are okay with that sort of thing, but a lot of women are not,' said a former colleague of his who worked with him at the bbc. 'Those drunken compliments simply aren't pleasing,' she said. 'They can get pretty uncomfortable even for women who are not too politically correct about all this.'

Jaffrey's autobiography is peppered with, what he calls ,drunken incidents'. His account of himself is often an account of his encounters with women, usually messy. The incident on the train comes after a series of self-announced involvements that inevitably would have had those on the other side quite worked up. Friction along similar lines seems to have caught up with him again. And so Saeed Jaffrey now looks for another role, and at 70, maybe retirement.

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