Birmingham REP is to première the first stage adaptation of Meera Syal’s Anita and Me.
Adapted for the stage by Tanika Gupta and directed by the REP’s artistic director Roxana Silbert, the show will open in autumn 2015.
Wolverhampton-born writer and actress Meera Syal’s semi-autobiographical debut novel, Anita and Me, was published in 1996.
The story of nine-year-old Meena, growing up in the only Punjabi family in a Black Country mining village, paints a “comic, poignant, compassionate and colourful portrait of village life in the era of flares, power cuts, glam rock, decimalisation and Ted Heath”.
Syal’s novel is a “unique vision of a British childhood in the ‘70s, a childhood caught between two cultures, each on the brink of change”.
It was recently announced that Anita and Me would be added to the English literature GCSE syllabus.
Meera Syal says of the stage adaptation, “I’m so thrilled that Anita and Me is being developed and premièred at Birmingham REP in the West Midlands where I grew up, where the novel is set and whose people and stories had such a huge influence on my childhood.
“I know Roxana and Tanika and the rest of the team will do it proud and I can't wait to see Anita, Meena and the rest of the crew come to life on stage. It will be, I'm pretty sure, bostin!”
Roxana Silbert adds, “Meera’s brilliant novel is a wonderful coming of age story. It’s an engaging and funny tale set in a tight-knit community about a young girl trying to decide her cultural identity. I look forward immensely to realising it on stage.”