Meera Syal named Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor

Meera Syal, this year’s Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre

Meera Syal has been named as the next Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre based at St Catherine’s College at the University of Oxford. She succeeds the director Sir Trevor Nunn.

Professor Syal is a playwright, actress and writer who rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and became one of the UK’s best-known Indian personalities in The Kumars at No. 42, having appeared on radio, television, film and on stage. Her recent stage roles include Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine and in October she is appearing in The Killing of Sister George at the Arts Theatre, London in the grotesque role of June Buckridge. She is the author of two novels, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee and Anita and Me which won the Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award. She has adapted both these novels for the screen. She also wrote the screenplay for the acclaimed film Bhaji on the Beach.

Professor Syal said: ‘I am honoured and hugely flattered to be taking up this prestigious appointment at Oxford University and wish to thank both St Catherine's, Cameron Mackintosh and Thelma Holt for this singular opportunity. I look forward to a mutually creative partnership over the next year with some undoubtedly ferociously bright students whom I hope will enjoy the exchange and debate as much as I will.’

The Chair of Contemporary Theatre, founded through a grant from the Mackintosh Foundation at St Catherine's College, aims to promote interest in, and the study and practice of, contemporary theatre. The Visiting Professorship has previously been held by actors, writers, directors, and producers including Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Miller, Alan Ayckbourn, Richard Eyre, Phyllida Lloyd and Patrick Stewart.

Professor Roger Ainsworth, Master of St Catherine's College, said, ‘I am delighted that in Meera we have somebody who is so talented and multi-faceted. Our students I know will be thrilled to have the opportunity of interacting and learning from someone with such a range of talent in so many different genres. We are thrilled that she has agreed to give us some of her precious time this year.’

Her inaugural lecture will take place at St Catherine's College at 5pm in the Bernard Sunley Theatre on Monday 14 November.