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Meera Syal

Meera Syal

Date of birth: 27-06-1961

Meera Syal was born in Wolverhampton and was educated at Manchester University where she read English and drama, gaining a double first.

Her career began at the Royal Court, and she quickly graduated to screenwriting – penning Bhaji on the Beach in 1993 and My Sister Wife in 1994 – as well as writing and performing in the pioneering comedy sketch-show The Real McCoy in the early 1990s.

  In 1996 Syal joined the cast and writing team of the sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, which ran until 2001, when she began her role as grandmother Ummi in the chat show The Kumars at No. 42.

  She is also a novelist, with two of her books being adapted for the screen: Anita and Me (2002) and Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee (2005).

  Her TV and film credits include Beautiful People), Dr Who, Horrible Histories, Back To Life, Doctor Strange, Paddington 2 and Yesterday.

 

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© Bafta/Rachell Smith

Reece Shearsmith joins Will Sharpe's Prodigies

Meera Syal and Lolly Adefope too

Reece Shearsmith, Meera Syal and Lolly Adefope have joined the cast of Apple TV’s  forthcoming series Prodigies. 

The show has been created and written by Will Sharpe, as recently seen in White Lotus and Lena Dunham’s Too Much. He also stars as one of two former child prodigies now in a relationship, with The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri playing the other.

Also joining the cast is Sophia Di Martino, who came to prominence in Sharpe’s 2106 Channel 4 comedy Flowers, alongside Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt. 

Other actors signing up include Yumi Aso, who played Prince Philip in The Crown, Kaos’s Nabhaan Rizwan and Japanese actress Yumi Asō. 

Details of the new cast’s roles have not been released, but Hollwood trade website Deadline says the show is ‘one of Apple’s hottest upcoming shows’.

According to the official logline, the central characters of Didi  and Ren are ‘two ex-child prodigies who have been together since they were children. Now in their early 30s, they are starting to question whether their very ordinary existence is living up to the extraordinary promise of their childhood. Inevitably, they find themselves asking the same questions of their relationship. As individual hopes and needs feed into and conflict with their shared lives, the series challenges the fallacy at the heart of romantic storytelling — that the tale is over when the heroes get together. In life, surely, that is just the beginning?’

Prodigies is being made by from Black Doves production company Sister.

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Published: 6 Aug 2025

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