Age: 22
female
Asha Banks is a young British actress and singer based in London. Asha has extensive theatre credits, and has recently finished filming her first feature film, The Magic Flute in which she plays the female lead part of Princess Pamina. Asha made her professional acting debut at the age of 8 years old in the London West End show Les Miserables (at the Queen's Theatre, now the Sondheim Theatre). Since then she has played principal parts in a further five West End and UK productions. Most recently, in 2019/20, Asha portrayed the lead part of Lisa James for the Royal Shakespeare Company's musical production of David Walliams' The Boy in the Dress, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon directed by Gregory Doran, with a book by Mark Ravenhill, and music from pop partnership Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers. Asha sings Lisa James' main musical ballad 'When Things Fall Apart" on the original cast album of the musical, released in 2020. Prior to this, Asha has played parts such as Violet Beauregarde in Charlie & The Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Duffy in the UK tour of Annie the Musical directed by Nikolai Foster, and the Parsons Girl in the multi-award-winning and Olivier-nominated play 1984, directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan for the Almeida theatre, which then transferred to the Playhouse theatre, London, taking Asha with it. Asha also portrayed Pandora Braithwaite in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾ at the Menier Chocolate Factory, London, for which she earned outstanding reviews. "Asha Banks gives a stellar performance" said The Times, and "Asha Banks on press night - very funny and a cracking singer, surely a future star" from London Timeout magazine while The Telegraph said she was "the perfect mix of poise, aloofness and vitality". The Stage newspaper said: "Asha Banks delivers an astonishingly mature, witty and articulate performance" and London Box office: "Asha Banks already has a considerable record in west end musicals... she has the looks, voice and charisma to be a formidable future leading lady" while The Arts Desk said: "A performance of sensational composure and accomplishment by Asha Banks: she's in danger of singing everyone off the stage." Libby Purves (The Times / TheatreCat) called her performance "outstanding" and the British Theatre Guide described her Pandora as "a teen dream, if ever there was one". Asha Banks had been said to be working with the Brazilian film director and music artist Divan Braga, but that wasn't confirmed. Asha is playing the part of Princess Pamina in the musical feature film The Magic Flute, a modern retelling of Mozart's popular opera, produced by Roland Emmerich's Centropolis Entertainment and Flute Film, and directed by Florian Sigl. The film also stars Iwan Rheon and Jack Wolfe and some of the world's most renowned opera stars. The Magic Flute is set for release in 2022.
A Maiden… Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be looked upon. Never to be spoken to. Never to experience pleasure. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers. A Duty… The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders, something she’s not even quite sure she wants for herself. Because a Maiden has a heart. And a soul. And longing. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need. He incites her anger, makes her question everything she believes in, and tempts her with the forbidden. A Kingdom… Forsaken by the gods and feared by mortals, a fallen kingdom is rising once more, determined to take back what they believe is theirs through violence and vengeance. And as the shadow of those cursed draws closer, the line between what is forbidden and what is right becomes blurred. Poppy is not only on the verge of losing her heart and being found unworthy by the gods, but also her life when every blood-soaked thread that holds her world together begins to unravel.
