Meera Syal
Encyclopedia
Meera Syal MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born Feeroza Syal on 27 June 1961) is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 comedienne
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...

, writer, playwright, singer, journalist, producer and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me
Goodness Gracious Me (TV & radio)
Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC English language sketch comedy show originally on BBC Radio 4 and later televised on BBC Two based on four British Indian actors: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia...

and became one of the UK's best-known Indian personalities portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42
The Kumars at No. 42
The Kumars at No. 42 was a British television show. It won an International Emmy in 2002 and in 2003. It ran for seven series totalling 53 episodes.-Plot:...

.

She was awarded the MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 in the New Year's Honours List of 1997 and in 2003 was listed in The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

as one of the fifty funniest acts in British comedy.

Life and career

Her Punjabi
Punjabi people
The Punjabi people , ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ), also Panjabi people, are an Indo-Aryan group from South Asia. They are the second largest of the many ethnic groups in South Asia. They originate in the Punjab region, which has been been the location of some of the oldest civilizations in the world including, the...

-born parents came to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 from New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

. She was born in Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...

, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

 (now West Midlands
West Midlands (region)
The West Midlands is an official region of England, covering the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the second most populous British city, Birmingham, and the larger West Midlands conurbation, which includes the city of Wolverhampton and large towns of Dudley,...

) and grew up in Essington
Essington
Essington is a village and civil parish in South Staffordshire, England. It is considered by the Office for National Statistics to be part of the Wolverhampton Urban Subdivision, and is within the West Midlands conurbation....

, a mining village a few miles to the north. When she was a young girl the family moved to Bloxwich
Bloxwich
Bloxwich is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, West Midlands, England, with a population of around 40,000 people.-Early history:Bloxwich has its origins at least as early as the Anglo-Saxon period, when the place name evidence suggests it was a small Mercian settlement named after the...

. She attended Queen Mary's High School
Queen Mary's High School
Queen Mary's High School, situated on Upper Forster Street, just outside Walsall town centre, is an all-female selective-education school and entry in Year 7 is by passing an entrance exam...

 in nearby Walsall
Walsall
Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...

, and then studied English and drama at Manchester University.

Syal wrote the screenplay for the 1993 film Bhaji on the Beach
Bhaji on the Beach
Bhaji on the Beach is a 1993 film by director Gurinder Chadha with a screenplay by Meera Syal.-Plot synopsis:A diverse group of British women of South Asian descent go on a day trip to the beach in Blackpool; despite their differences—the older women are more traditional and conservative,...

, directed by Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha
Gurinder Chadha , OBE, is a British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in the United Kingdom. She is best known for the hit films Bhaji on the Beach , Bend It Like Beckham , Bride and Prejudice and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging...

, of Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham is a 2002 comedy-drama film starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Anupam Kher, Shaznay Lewis, and Archie Panjabi first released in the United Kingdom. The film was directed by Gurinder Chadha...

fame. She was one of the team who wrote and performed in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 comedy sketch show Goodness Gracious Me
Goodness Gracious Me (TV & radio)
Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC English language sketch comedy show originally on BBC Radio 4 and later televised on BBC Two based on four British Indian actors: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia...

(1996–2001), originally on radio and then on television.

She achieved a number one record with Gareth Gates
Gareth Gates
Gareth Paul Gates , is an English singer-songwriter. He was the runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol. Gates has sold over 3.5 million records in the UK alone. He is also known for having a stutter, and has talked about his speech impediment publicly...

 and her co-stars from The Kumars at No. 42
The Kumars at No. 42
The Kumars at No. 42 was a British television show. It won an International Emmy in 2002 and in 2003. It ran for seven series totalling 53 episodes.-Plot:...

with Spirit in the Sky
Spirit in the Sky
"Spirit in the Sky" is a song written and originally recorded by Norman Greenbaum and released in 1969. The single sold two million copies in 1969 and 1970 and reached number three in the U.S. Billboard chart, as well as number one on the UK, Australian and Canadian charts in 1970. Rolling Stone...

, the Comic Relief single. She also sang Then He Kissed Me (composed by Biddu
Biddu
Biddu or Biddu Appaiah is an Indian-British music producer, composer, song-writer and singer who produced and composed many hit records worldwide during a career spanning five decades...

) with the Pakistani pop star
Music of Pakistan
The music of Pakistan includes diverse elements ranging from music from various parts of South Asia as well as Central Asian, Persian, Turkish, Arabic and modern day Western popular music influences...

 Nazia Hassan
Nazia Hassan
Nazia Hassan was an iconic Pakistani pop singer. Her song "Aap Jaisa Koi" from the Indian film Qurbani made her a legend and pop icon in Pakistan and all of South Asia in the 1980s, where she is admired and loved even today, years after her death...

. Syal, Hassan, and Bidddu also came up with the girl band
Girl group
A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...

 named "Saffron" in 1988.

In October 2008 she starred in the BBC2 sitcom Beautiful People
Beautiful People (UK TV series)
Beautiful People is a British comedy drama television series based on the memoirs of Barneys creative director Simon Doonan. The series takes place in Reading, Berkshire in 1997, where thirteen-year-old Simon Doonan and his best friend Kylie dream of escaping their dreary suburban surroundings and...

. This role, as Aunty Hayley, continued in 2009. Syal starred in the eleventh series of Holby City
Holby City
Holby City, stylised as Holby Ci+y, is a British medical drama television series that airs weekly on BBC One.The series was created by Tony McHale and Mal Young as a spin-off from the established BBC medical drama Casualty, and premiered on 12 January 1999...

as Consultant Tara Sodi. In 2009, she guest starred in Minder and starred in the film Mad, Sad & Bad. In 2010, she played Shirley Valentine
Shirley Valentine
Shirley Valentine is a one-character play by Willy Russell. Taking the form of a monologue by a middle-aged, working class Liverpool housewife, it focuses on her life before and after a transforming holiday abroad.-Plot:...

 in a one-woman show at the Trafalgar Studios
Trafalgar Studios
Trafalgar Studios, formerly The Whitehall Theatre until 2004, is a West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London....

. In the same year she played Nasreen Chroudhry in two episodes of Doctor Who
Doctor Who (series 5)
The fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 3 April 2010 with "The Eleventh Hour" and ended with "The Big Bang" on 26 June 2010. The series was led by head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, who took over after the departure of Russell T Davies. The...

alongside Matt Smith. Her Goodness Gracious Me co-star, Nina Wadia
Nina Wadia
-Television and film:Wadia first came to prominence in BBC sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, playing characters such as Mrs "I can make it at home for nothing!" and one half of The Competitive Mothers...

, also appeared earlier in the same series episode "The Eleventh Hour
The Eleventh Hour (Doctor Who)
"The Eleventh Hour" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 3 April 2010....

".

Awards and recognition

Syal won the National Student Drama Award for performing in One of Us which was written by Jacqueline Shapiro while at university. She won the Betty Trask Award
Betty Trask Award
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. The awards were established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels...

 for her first book Anita and Me
Anita and Me
Anita and Me is Meera Syal's debut novel, and was first published in 1996. It is a semi-autobiographical novel which won the Betty Trask Award....

and the Media Personality of the Year award at the Commission for Racial Equality
Commission for Racial Equality
The Commission for Racial Equality was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom which aimed to tackle racial discrimination and promote racial equality. Its work has been merged into the new Equality and Human Rights Commission.-History:...

's annual Race in the Media awards in 2000.

She was given the Nazia Hassan Foundation
Nazia Hassan Foundation
The Nazia Hassan Foundation was established by Nazia Hassan's parents Basir and Muniza, her sister Zahra, her brother Zoheb, and her son Arez. The charity is headquartered in London, United Kingdom, and was established to continue Nazia’s social work....

 award in 2003.

In June 2003 she appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

's Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...

programme with a selection of music by Nitin Sawhney
Nitin Sawhney
Nitin Sawhney is an Indian-British musician, producer and composer. His critically acclaimed work combines Asian and other worldwide influences with elements of jazz and electronica and often explores themes such as multiculturalism, politics and spirituality...

, Madan Bala Sindhu, Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

, Pizzicato Five
Pizzicato Five
Pizzicato Five was a Japanese pop group best known to audiences in the West in their later incarnation as a duo of Maki Nomiya and Yasuharu Konishi...

, Sukhwinder Singh
Sukhwinder Singh
Sukhwinder Singh, Born as Sukhi Singh Lubana is an Indian singer best known for working as Bollywood playback artist. Singh is famous for singing "Chaiyya Chaiyya" for which he won the Best Male Playback Award at the 1999 Filmfare Awards. The song, from Mani Ratnam's 1998 film Dil Se, was composed...

, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 and others. The luxury she chose to ease her life as a castaway was a piano. As a journalist she writes occasionally for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

.

Personal life

In 2004 she took part in one episode of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 series Who Do You Think You Are?, which investigated her family history. One of her parents is Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 and the other a Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...

 and since both share the same cultural heritage the families had no problem at all. Syal was apparently surprised to discover both her grandfathers had campaigned against British rule
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...

 and presence in India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

: one was a communist journalist; the other was a Punjab
Punjab region
The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...

 protestor, who was imprisoned and tortured in the Golden Temple
Harmandir Sahib
The Harmandir Sahib also Darbar Sahib , also referred to as the Golden Temple, is a prominent Sikh gurdwara located in the city of Amritsar, Punjab . Construction of the gurdwara was begun by Guru Ram Das, the fourth Sikh Guru, and completed by his successor, Guru Arjan Dev...

.

In January 2005, Syal married her frequent collaborator, Sanjeev Bhaskar
Sanjeev Bhaskar
Sanjeev Bhaskar, OBE is a British Indian comedian, actor and broadcaster, best known for his work in the BBC Two comedy series Goodness Gracious Me and as host of The Kumars at No. 42...

, who plays her grandson in The Kumars At No. 42; the marriage ceremony took place in Lichfield
Lichfield
Lichfield is a cathedral city, civil parish and district in Staffordshire, England. One of eight civil parishes with city status in England, Lichfield is situated roughly north of Birmingham...

, Staffordshire
Staffordshire
Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

. Their baby, a boy named Shaan, was born at the Portland Hospital
Portland Hospital
The Portland Hospital for Women and Children, usually referred to simply as the Portland Hospital, is a hospital in Great Portland Street, London...

 on 2 December 2005. Syal has a daughter called Chameli from her former marriage to journalist Shekhar Bhatia. Her brother is investigative journalist Rajeev Syal.

In February 2009, Syal was one of a number of British entertainers who signed an open letter printed in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

protesting about the persecution of Bahá'ís
Persecution of Bahá'ís
The persecution of Bahá'ís is the religious persecution of Bahá'ís in various countries, especially in Iran, where the Bahá'í Faith originated and the location of one of the largest Bahá'í populations in the world...

 in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

.

In January 2011, Syal took part in the BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

 programme My Teenage Diary, discussing growing up as the only British Asian
British Asian
British Asian is a term used to describe British citizens who descended from mainly South Asia, also known as South Asians in the United Kingdom...

 girl in a small English town, feeling overweight and unattractive.

Stage

  • One of Us (1983)
  • The Oppressed Minorities Big Fun Show (1992)
  • Goodness Gracious Me (1999)
  • Bombay Dreams
    Bombay Dreams
    Bombay Dreams is a Bollywood-themed musical, with music by A. R. Rahman, lyrics by Don Black and the book by Meera Syal and Thomas Meehan,and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The London production opened in 2002 and ran for two years...

    (2002)
  • Shirley Valentine (2010)
  • The Killing of Sister George
    The Killing of Sister George
    The Killing of Sister George is a 1964 play by Frank Marcus that was adapted as a 1968 film directed by Robert Aldrich.- Stage version :Sister George is a beloved character in the popular radio series Applehurst, a nurse who ministers to the medical needs and personal problems of the local villagers...

    (2011)

Radio

  • Goodness Gracious Me
    Goodness Gracious Me (TV & radio)
    Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC English language sketch comedy show originally on BBC Radio 4 and later televised on BBC Two based on four British Indian actors: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia...

    (1996–98)
  • Masala FM (1996)
  • Woman's Hour Drama: A Small Town Murder (2010)

Television

  • The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole
    The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (TV series)
    The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ is a British television series based on the book of the same name written by Sue Townsend. It started in 1985 and starred Gian Sammarco, as the title character Adrian Mole, Stephen Moore as Adrian's father George Mole and Julie Walters followed by Lulu as...

     (1985)
  • Tandoori Nights
    Tandoori Nights
    Tandoori Nights was a television sitcom broadcast on Channel 4 between 1985 and 1987. It consisted of two series of six episodes each. The series was directed by Jon Amiel and written by Farrukh Dhondy. It is the story of two rival restaurants in London, and starred Saeed Jaffery, Tariq Yunus, Rita...

    (1985)
  • The Real McCoy
    The Real McCoy (TV series)
    The Real McCoy was a BBC Television comedy show which ran from 1991 to 1996, featuring an array of black and Asian comedy stars performing material aimed at an across-the-board black audience....

    (1991)
  • My Sister Wife (1994)
  • Goodness Gracious Me
    Goodness Gracious Me (TV & radio)
    Goodness Gracious Me is a BBC English language sketch comedy show originally on BBC Radio 4 and later televised on BBC Two based on four British Indian actors: Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia...

    (1998)
  • Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee
    Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee
    Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee is a 1999 novel by Meera Syal that was later adapted into a three-part BBC television miniseries in 2005. Childhood friends Tania , Sunita and Chila are now in their 30s and at a crossroads in life...

     (2005)
  • Beautiful People
    Beautiful People (UK TV series)
    Beautiful People is a British comedy drama television series based on the memoirs of Barneys creative director Simon Doonan. The series takes place in Reading, Berkshire in 1997, where thirteen-year-old Simon Doonan and his best friend Kylie dream of escaping their dreary suburban surroundings and...

     (2008)
  • Horrible Histories (UK Children's TV series)(2010)
  • Uncle Santa (UK Little Crackers
    Little Crackers
    Little Crackers is a British television comedy series that was broadcast on Sky1 and Sky1 HD in December 2010. It consists of a series of short films featuring stars of British comedy including Dawn French, Stephen Fry and Catherine Tate...

     TV series) (2010)
  • Doctor Who
    Doctor Who
    Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

    2 Episodes (2010)
  • The Jury
    The Jury (TV serial)
    The Jury is a British television serial broadcast in 2002 . The series was the first ever to be allowed to film inside the historic Old Bailey courthouse.-Series One:...

     (2011)

Novels

  • Anita and Me (1996)
  • Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee (1999), published in German under the title Sari, Jeans und Chilischoten in 2003

Selected filmography

  • The One of Us (1983)
  • Majdhar (1983)
  • The Diary of Adrian Mole (1985)
  • A Little Princess (1986)
  • Sunday East (1986–87)
  • Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
    Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
    Sammy and Rosie Get Laid is a film directed by Stephen Frears, with a screenplay by Hanif Kureishi; features Fine Young Cannibals singer Roland Gift in one of his earliest screen appearances.-Plot synopsis:...

    (1987)
  • Serious Money (1987)
  • Peer Gynt (1990)
  • The Real McCoy
    The Real McCoy (TV series)
    The Real McCoy was a BBC Television comedy show which ran from 1991 to 1996, featuring an array of black and Asian comedy stars performing material aimed at an across-the-board black audience....

    (1991)
  • Gummed Labels (1992)
  • Taggart
    Taggart
    Taggart is a Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler, who has written many of the episodes, and made by STV Productions for the ITV network...

    (1992)
  • The Oppressed Minorities Big Fun Show (1992)
  • Sean's Show
    Sean's Show
    Sean's Show was a UK television situation comedy broadcast on Channel 4. Stand-up comedian Sean Hughes co-wrote and starred as a fictionalised version of himself, aware of the fact he was living in a sitcom .It received a nomination for the 1992 British Comedy Award for Best Channel 4...

    (1993)
  • The Brain Drain
    The Brain Drain
    The Brain Drain was a BBC comedy panel show that ran for 2 seasons in the early 1990s.Presented by Jimmy Mulville and featuring a panel of 4 performers , the show was essentially a comedy version of Question Time...

    (1993)
  • Absolutely Fabulous
    Absolutely Fabulous
    Absolutely Fabulous, also known as Ab Fab, is a British sitcom created by Jennifer Saunders, based on an original idea by her and Dawn French, and written by Saunders, who plays the leading character. It also stars Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha, along with June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks...

    (1994)
  • New Best Friend
    New Best Friend
    New Best Friend is a 2002 American film based on a story by author James Edwards. The film was originally owned by MGM, which eventually let this film go...

    (1994)
  • Flight (1995)
  • Degrees of Error (1995)
  • Band of Gold (1995)
  • It's Not Unusual
    It's Not Unusual
    "It's Not Unusual" is a song written by Les Reed and Gordon Mills, first recorded by a then-unknown Tom Jones after having first been offered to Sandie Shaw. Jones recorded what was intended to be a demo for Shaw, but when she heard it she was so impressed with Jones' delivery that she declined the...

    (1995)
  • Drop The Dead Donkey
    Drop the Dead Donkey
    - Major characters :* Gus Hedges — The unctuous Chief Executive of the company, and yes-man to Sir Roysten Merchant. A management stereotype, complete with clichés and clumsy metaphors, he swiftly transforms GlobeLink from a serious news network to a ratings-chasing tabloid channel...

    (1996)
  • A Nice Arrangement (1996)
  • Beautiful Thing
    Beautiful Thing
    Originally Beautiful Thing is a play written by Jonathan Harvey and first performed in 1993. A screen adaptation of the play was released in 1996 by Channel 4 Films, with a revised screenplay also by Harvey. Initially, the film was only intended for television broadcast but it was so well-received...

    (1996)
  • Marsala FM (1996)
  • Crossing The Floor (1996)
  • Ruby (1997)
  • Sixth Happiness
    Sixth Happiness
    Sixth Happiness is a 1997 film directed by Indian director Waris Hussein. It is based on the autobiography of Firdaus Kanga entitled Trying To Grow. Kanga played himself in this film about Britain, India, race and sex....

    (1997)
  • The Book Quiz
    The Book Quiz
    The Book Quiz is a BBC Four quiz programme. The first series, first broadcast in 2007, was hosted by David Baddiel with a second 2008 series hosted by Kirsty Wark.-Critical reception:...

    (1998)
  • No Crying He Makes (1998)
  • Keeping Mum (1998)
  • Legal Affairs
    Legal Affairs
    Legal Affairs was an American magazine that was launched under the auspices of Yale Law School, and which later became an independent non-profit venture with an educational mission. As the first general interest legal magazine, Legal Affairs featured stories that centered on the intersection of law...

    (1998)
  • The World As We Know It (1999)
  • Late Lunch (1999)
  • Room 101
    Room 101 (TV series)
    Room 101 is a BBC comedy television series based on the radio series of the same name, in which celebrities were invited to discuss their pet hates and persuade the host to consign them to a fate worse than death in Room 101, named after the torture room in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is...

    (1999)
  • The Vagina Monologues
    The Vagina Monologues
    The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler which ran at the Off Broadway Westside Theatre after a limited run at AFRICA in 1996. Ensler originally starred in the production which was produced by David Stone, Nina Essman, Dan Markley, The Araca Group, Willa Shalit, Mike Skipper...

    (2001)
  • Double Income, No Kids Yet
    Double Income, No Kids Yet
    Double Income, No Kids Yet is a British radio sitcom written by David Spicer and originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from June 2001 to November 2003...

    (2001)
  • Anita and Me
    Anita and Me
    Anita and Me is Meera Syal's debut novel, and was first published in 1996. It is a semi-autobiographical novel which won the Betty Trask Award....

    (2002)
  • QI
    QI
    QI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...

    (2003)
  • Bad Girls (2004)
  • Bombay Dreams (2004)
  • Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee
    Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee
    Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee is a 1999 novel by Meera Syal that was later adapted into a three-part BBC television miniseries in 2005. Childhood friends Tania , Sunita and Chila are now in their 30s and at a crossroads in life...

    (2005)
  • Murder Investigation Team
    Murder Investigation Team
    Murder/Major Investigation Teams are the specialised homicide squads of the Metropolitan Police in London, England. Forming part of the Homicide and Serious Crime Command, itself part of the Specialist Crime Directorate, there is one MIT for each Borough Operational Command Unit...

    (2005)
  • The Amazing Mrs Pritchard
    The Amazing Mrs Pritchard
    The Amazing Mrs Pritchard was a British drama series that aired on BBC One in 2006. Produced by Kudos, it was written by Sally Wainwright and stars Jane Horrocks in the title role of a woman with no previous political experience who becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.-Background:Sally...

    (2006)
  • Who Do You Think You Are? (2006)
  • 8 Out of 10 Cats
    8 Out of 10 Cats
    8 out of 10 Cats is a television comedy panel game made by Zeppotron for Channel 4. It was first broadcast on 3 June 2005. The show is based on statistics and opinion polls, and draws on polls produced by a variety of organizations and new polls commissioned for the programme, carried out by...

     (2006)
  • Rafta Rafta (2006)
  • Jekyll
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Academic reception

Her book Anita and Me has found its way onto school and university English syllabuses both in Britain and abroad. Scholarly literature on it includes:
  • Rocío G. Davis, "India in Britain: Myths of Childhood in Meera Syal's Anita and Me", in Fernando Galván & Mercedes Bengoechea (ed.), On Writing (and) Race in Contemporary Britain, Universidad de Alcalá 1999, 139-46.

  • Ana Maria Sanchez-Arce "Invisible Cities: Being and Creativity in Meera Syal’s Anita and Me and Ben Okri’s Astonishing the Gods", in Philip Laplace and Éric Tabuteau (eds), Cities on the Margin/ On the Margin of Cities: Representations of Urban Space in Contemporary British and Irish Fiction, Besançon: Presses Universitaires Franc-Comtoises, 2003: 113–30.

  • Graeme Dunphy, "Meena's Mockingbird: From Harper Lee
    Harper Lee
    Nelle Harper Lee is an American author known for her 1960 Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which deals with the issues of racism that were observed by the author as a child in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama...

     to Meera Syal", in Neophilologus 88, 2004, 637-59.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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