Meera Syal: Perhaps life is all ha ha hee hee
by Seeta Bhardwa
Meera Syal, the iconic British Asian comedian, catapulted to fame with the riotous Goodness Gracious Me, followed promptly by the The Kumars at No 42. Yet, this doyenne of comedy is also a writer, with books like Anita and Me and Life isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee (both of which were later adapted to film) populating many a shelf around the world.
Syal’s sheer range of projects displays just how she is one of the most prominent and talented comedians. But what exactly is Syal’s winning formula that makes her so successful?
One theory is the relatable elements of her original work. She draws from personal experience to inspire her writing, a method she used from childhood; she would use her brand of self-deprecating comedy to help her to fit in with her peers and escape the insecurities she often felt.
Her love for performing continued, resulting in her reading English and Drama at the University of Manchester. In her final year, she was awarded the National Student Drama award, her first accolade and certainly not her last.
Syal’s first writing job was on the 1985 television series, Tandoori Nights, which was Channel 4’s first Asian comedy series. She moved on to writing and performing in the TV series The Real McCoy, a stand up show featuring material from black and Asian comedians. She then wrote the screenplay of the 1993 feature film, Bhaji on the Beach, directed by Gurinder Chadha, following a group of Asian women on a trip to the beach.
However, it was Goodness Gracious Me, which catapulted Syal to dizzying heights. Originally, a radio show on Radio 4, it was later developed into a television series broadcasted on BBC 2. The exaggeration of racial stereotypes such as “going for an English” criticised—through irony and humour—the way British Asians are often viewed in British society. Syal shone through her recurring characters of an over competitive mother, Smita Smitten (a washed out Bollywood reporter) and one half of the Minx twins – characters that most Asians would be very familiar with!
Following on from the success of Goodness Gracious Me came The Kumars at No. 42, where Syal was reunited with her Goodness Gracious Me co-star, Sanjeev Bhaskar, and where they once again created comedy gold. Although Syal was not involved with the writing process of the show, she often heavily improvised her character of “Ummi”, a sex–crazed grandmother, asking the most hilarious and inappropriate questions to the celebrity guests, taking the notion of embarrassing families to a new level. The show was a huge success broadcasting from 2001 to 2006 on BBC1 then moving on to BBC2.
In addition to her television success, Syal is also a successful novelist. Her childhood experiences of growing up in a Punjabi family living in the middle of a small mining community in the West Midlands became the background to her first novel, Anita and Me, which charted a young Asian girl’s struggle to relate to her white peers. Witty one–liners, such as the protagonist Meena’s desire to be blond when she grows up, reflect the tragic-comic desire of Asian women to belong to a western culture which they believe to be superior.
Syal’s second novel, Life Isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee, is darker yet still contains her fresh comedic approach to outdated stereotypes of British Asian women. It was also the basis of Syal’s investigation into British Asian women who self-harm.
In 1997, Syal received an MBE for services to drama, not too shabby for someone who began to use comedy as a way to deal with her feeling like an outsider.
Catch Meera Syal in conversation at the Southbank Centre on 28 June 2011
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