How panto first inspired Meera Syal

Meera Syal received a Bafta lifetime achievement award in 2023

TV star Meera Syal has revealed how a pantomime in Stoke-on-Trent convinced her to become an actor.

In an interview for BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, Syal said she first realised acting was a realistic career path when she saw Dick Whittington as a child.

The Wolverhampton-born actor, comedian and writer said she was taken to see the show with the Sunday school she attended.

“This is why pantomimes are so important for kids, because it's often their first experience of theatre and live performance," Syal said.

During the performance, she was chosen from the audience to pat the villain on the head to "show he was being a good boy".

Now 62, she recalled walking down the "dark stairs" and approaching the actors.

'I fell in love'

She said: "I can see their makeup running and I can see their laboured breath. I pat the villain - and I smell those smells - and I go, ‘what is this place? I don't know what it is, but it's home. This is where anything is possible’.

"So that was the moment I realised what an actor was and that's when I fell in love with it."

It was a "classic" moment that she said could have been a "great scene in a film".

Meera Syal grew up in the village of Essington in Staffordshire

Syal, best known for her work on Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumar’s at No. 42, grew up in Essington, Staffordshire, after her parents moved from India to the UK.

During the interview with The Media Show, she spoke of being a "telly addict" and how it was a window into a world she "couldn’t imagine".

"I was growing up in a little mining village. So seeing different parts of the world was all terribly exotic, but I was also excited by the storytelling," she said.

Syal was appointed a CBE in 2015 and earlier this year she received a lifetime achievement award from Bafta.

Meera Syal's interview with The Media Show will be aired on BBC Radio 4 at 16:30 GMT on Wednesday 27 December.