Dame Meera Syal says two episodes of sexual harassment and assault in her twenties nearly drove her out of the industry, but she turned the experience into a spur for activism and a new memoir. In Vigilauntie, published on Thursday, the Wolverhampton-born actor and writer describes how the incidents left her out of work and, for a time, homeless, before she found support and purpose.
Syal told BBC Asian Network's Amber Haque that the first episode was a casting-couch proposition from a theatre director who implied a pantomime role would depend on sexual favours. She refused and left, but a few weeks later an older actor invited her to his home on the pretext of career help and assaulted her. That actor has since died.
She did not report the assaults or tell family and friends at the time, she said, because such behaviour was part of the culture in the 1970s through the 1990s. "You wouldn't even bother to report half of these things because A, you wouldn't be believed and B, everyone was doing it," she said. The episodes could have ended her career, she added, but instead they fuelled a determination to act: "I did survive, and not only did I survive, I thrived."
Rather than withdraw, Syal sought out women's groups and began campaigning. She recounted joining Newham Asian Women's Project and Southall Black Sisters, and said the anger she felt led her to work to "create South Asian women that roared." Those efforts, she says, changed the course of her life.
Syal's memoir traces that arc against a long career in British entertainment. Born in Wolverhampton in 1961 to Indian Punjabi parents from New Delhi, she attended Queen Mary's High School in Walsall before joining the BBC in the 1990s. Her credits include writing the screenplay for Bhaji On The Beach in 1993, acting in Beautiful Thing in 1995, and co-writing Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bombay Dreams in 2002. She became a familiar face on TV through shows such as Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42.
Last year Syal was made a dame in the King's New Year Honours for services to literature, drama and charity. The full interview is available on Asian Network, and the memoir offers a personal record of how she moved from victimhood to public campaigning while building a celebrated career.
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