Midlands Heroes: Dame Meera Syal still has the Midlands Midas touch

Born in Wolverhampton in 1961, Dame Meera Syal has been a pop culture fixture for as long as most millennials can remember, having been part of the team that brought Goodness Gracious Me to life from 1996 to 2001, and later taking to our screens as everybody’s favourite grandmother in The Kumars at No. 42. 

Born to Indian Punjabi parents who came to the United Kingdom from New Delhi, in early life Syal moved to Essington. Her family's status as the only Asian family in the small mining village was later to form the backdrop to her novel (later filmed) Anita and Me.

She attended Queen Mary's High School in nearby Walsall and then studied English and Drama at Manchester University, graduating with a Double First.

Despite her stint in the north west, however, Syal has always retained her love of her West Mids roots.

An advocate of the awesome power of television, Syal once famously suggested it was responsible for Barack Obama’s election to the US Presidency.

The actress was a guest on chat show John Bishop In Conversation With… when she told the comedian why she believes the former president had TV to thank for landing the job as the world’s most powerful person.

Syal said: “I don’t think America would have had Obama if they hadn’t had a good 20 years of television where they absolutely cast in a multiracial way.

“The first time somebody cast a black actor as a surgeon or a judge or a police chief, I’m sure there were lots of Americans going: ‘That doesn’t happen, that’s tokenistic’.

“American television kept on doing it because it’s not just about what reality we think is around us, it’s the reality we want to see – television is aspirational as well as reflective.

“I honestly think the 20 years of normalising black people in positions of power made Obama possible. If television hadn’t done that, I’m not sure that would have happened.

“I know that’s a big leap to make, but sometimes you have to drag television into the reality of the world it’s ignoring, which is that we are a nation of all kinds of people, doing all kinds of jobs, so why isn’t it normal to see that on television?”

During the interview Syal also spoke about meeting Sanjeev Bhaskar - her future husband - while working together on Goodness Gracious Me.

She said: “When you first meet someone you just put on your best front, it’s like I will be my most beautiful and witty and attractive and you will not see any nasty bit of me until I’ve really got you.

“But with us it was the other way around, we were completely ourselves because we weren’t interested and we were both with other people.

“So when it did turn into something else it was like, ‘Oh, I really do actually know you as a mate, you don’t have to do any of that impressing me because I’ve seen you behave really quite badly, when you had no front on’.

“So that’s actually really comforting because you know beyond the attraction there is a proper, real compatibility there.” 

In a true stroke of justice, Syal was given a damehood in the King’s New Year Honours list this year, recognised for her services to literature, drama and charity.

Dame Meera was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen’s New Year Honours list in 1997, and in 2015 she was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

While studying for her degree in Manchester, she co-wrote a play called One of Us, about an Asian girl who runs away to be an actress.

She took the play to the National Student Drama Festival, where it won a prize to perform at the Edinburgh International Festival.

This kick-started her career after her graduation, and Dame Meera went to work at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool in 1987 – where she starred as Jacinta Condor in Caryl Churchill’s play Serious Money.

In 1993, she wrote the screenplay for the comedy-drama film Bhaji On The Beach, and two years later she starred in the Channel 4 romantic comedy film Beautiful Thing.

It was during the 1990s that she joined the BBC, of course rising to prominence with Goodness Gracious Me.

Syal later helped to bring Bollywood to the West End, and co-wrote Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams in 2002.

She has also featured in hit films Paddington 2 (2017), Nativity Rocks! (2018), Yesterday (2019) and more recently Tinsel Town (2025).

In 2017, the actress was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2023, she received the Bafta Fellowship award.

Also in 2023, the star was recognised for a Women in Film & Television Lifetime Achievement Award.

During her career, Syal has also dedicated herself to charity work, and is an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society.

According to its website, she took on the role in 2013 after receiving “amazing” help from the charity following her father’s dementia diagnosis in 2012.

She is also a supporter of Kisharon – a charity for Jewish children, young people, and adults with learning disabilities and autism.

In 2014, she was a guest speaker at a gala for the charity, which helped it raise more than £700,000.

Whatever Syal touches turns to gold, and we’ll always love her for helping to keep the Midlands on the map.