The Split is back – with a twist

When the actor Ritu Arya was growing up, her favourite TV series was the comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me. Created in the late 90s by Sanjeev Bhaskar, Meera Syal and Anil Gupta, the series was groundbreaking in its depiction of British Asian lives. Such was Arya’s love of the show that she and her cousin created their own version called “Goodness Gracious Me Kids”, which they would perform at home and which her aunt captured on home video. So Arya couldn’t believe her luck last year when she was cast in The Split Up, a new spin-off of the hit legal drama The Split, alongside Bhaskar as her on-screen father. “It was a real full-circle moment for me,” she says happily. Shortly before filming started, Arya confessed to Bhaskar about her childhood homage to Goodness Gracious Me and showed him a clip. “There I was, this lanky child hamming it up playing a guru. I thought Sanjeev might find it a bit funny, but he actually got quite emotional and gave me a huge hug. I think he was really moved to see what his show meant to the next generation.” The Split Up is a six-part drama that, like its Abi Morgan-penned predecessor, revolves around a family-run law firm specialising in high-profile, high-stakes divorce cases; each week brings a new case that plays out as the lawyers deal with their own schisms behind the scenes. Unlike The Split, The Split Up features a predominantly British Asian cast and creative team. It says a lot that, in 2026, this still feels revolutionary. Since Goodness Gracious Me blazed a trail, only a handful of mainstream British TV series have done the same: The Kumars at No 42, A Suitable Boy, Citizen Khan, Man Like Mobeen and We Are Lady Parts among them. In The Split Up, Arya plays Aria Kishan, a thirtysomething barrister who is all set to take over the firm from her father, Dhruv (Bhaskar), and marry her long-term partner Neal (Danny Ashok). But the death of Aria’s mother leads Dhruv to alter his succession plans, much to his eldest daughter’s chagrin. Another spanner in the works arrives in the shape of Luke (Dimitri Leonidas), a former fling of Aria’s who has been hired by her dad as a senior associate. Throw in some dramatic subplots involving Aria’s siblings Maya (Aysha Kala) and Kav (Arian Nik) and, just like its predecessor, The Split Up turns out to be glossy, explosive and utterly moreish. Ritu Arya plays Aria Kishan, who is all set to take over the family firm from her father (Photo: Ben Blackall/Sister Pictures/BBC) Abi Morgan (writer of The Hour, Suffragette, and Shame) is the show’s executive producer and says the idea for the original series sprang out of a chance meeting between her and a female divorce lawyer. “But I also have to say a big thank you to my own parents, who went through a divorce, and to all my friends who’ve been through tough break-ups and let me lean in and hear their stories,” she says. The chief aim with The Split, which launched in 2018 and spanned three series, was that “it should be a ride”, says Morgan. “It had to be entertaining. There’s a book I love called Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa, which has in it these melodramatic telenovelas where everyone is falling in love, the neighbours are having affairs and it’s all betrayal and yearning. And that was what I wanted in the show.” But by 2024, Morgan knew The Split had run its course – “How many times can I divorce and remarry them?” she laughs. So when the BBC suggested a spin-off focusing on a different family law firm in Manchester – a city where she spent a large portion of her childhood – she was thrilled. Rather than resuming writing duties, Morgan’s role has been to act “as godmother and running partner with the show’s creative team”. “One of the things I think about a lot is the next generation [of writers and performers] and how best to support them. What’s been great about The Split Up is working with different writers and getting to see their vision. It’s been a real joy to see it grow.” The role of Abi Morgan, who wrote ‘The Split’, has been to act ‘as godmother and running partner with the new drama’s creative team’ (Photo: Tristan Fewings/Getty) Leading that writing team is Ursula Rani Sarma, who started her career as a playwright and is best known for adapting Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns for the stage. She says she jumped at the chance to write a show revolving around a British Asian family. “The premise was a new family and a new chapter within The Split universe, which would be diverse and outside of London, and then it was over to me. I had full autonomy to create these characters and the firm and come up with the stories.” Sarma says it felt vital to her to create British Asian characters who are living normal lives. “Society is reflected back to us by the shows we see on television. We’re so used to seeing token British Asian characters in extraordinary circumstances, whether that’s terrorism or going through arranged marriages. So to birth these British Asians just being a normal family living their lives made me so happy. That’s proper representation to me.” She notes how, as a writer, there can be an impulse to try and represent “every facet of the culture, but you can’t do that. So you pick one family, you try to build characters that people will fall in love with and that is true to the reality of life as a British Asian, a reality that I have in my life or have seen among my peers. My aim was to make The Split Up feel real, contemporary and honest.” Morgan is clear that there was a formula to The Split that instantly landed with audiences: “You can punk up that formula and you can move it forward. But ultimately, it’s about family and splits within the family, and the complexities of relationships. It’s about the great loves of your life, and those can be people you fall in love with or the family you’re born into. It’s been amazing to see Ursula and her writing team really take that on board while allowing it to evolve.” ‘The Split’ (starring Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan, above) spanned three series and was a big hit for the BBC (Photo: Tereza Cervenova/ Sister Pictures/BBC) This is echoed by Arya, who loved The Split but says The Split Up “is its own show, with its own tone, even though it is anchored by those same themes: love, family, ambition, betrayal”. Her character, Aria, is the beating heart of the show. For research, Arya interviewed a family lawyer who talked her through the legal jargon and her average working day. She was struck by her “intelligence, resourcefulness and articulation. She was just this badass juggling family with a vast workload.” Aria, she continues, is “ambitious, driven, compassionate and deeply flawed. I loved that contrast. I also love how much she champions her siblings, but also how they call each other out on their shit. And all this is told through this tender moment when they’re grieving for their mother.” For Morgan, The Split Up represents the newest chapter in her career-long campaign to provide meaty, complex roles for “ensembles of women. That has always been political for me. If you don’t have an ensemble of women, and if you just have one female lead, then that one woman gets all the jobs. What I’m trying to build is a culture. In The Split Up we’ve got women writing, acting, casting, producing and operating cameras.” She adds that, when watching her own work on TV, the highlight for her has always been watching the credits. “I love to see how much work a show has generated and to know that it is serving an entire community of people,” she says. “With that, you can effect real change.” ‘The Split-Up’ is on BBC One tonight at 9pm and is also available on BBC iPlayer