Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor and writer Meera Syal. She was born in the sixties after her parents had immigrated here from the Punjab and brought up in Essington, a Staffordshire mining village five miles north east of Wolverhampton. She studied English and Drama at Manchester University.

Her one woman show One Of Us went to the Edinburgh Festival where she was spotted by a director from the Royal Court Theatre in London and offered an immediate equity card. Meera gave up her academic plans and moved to London to act in the theatre. She wrote and starred in 'My Sister Wife' for BBC2 and moved on to write and perform in the popular Goodness Gracious Me and to play the flirtatious granny in the Kumars at Number 42. She has written the script for the London musical Bombay Dreams which will be going to Broadway.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Young, Gifted and Black by Bob and Marcia
Book: Hindi-English dictionary
Alternative to Bible: Bhagvadgita - ancient Hindu text
Luxury: A piano