Before Meera Syal came on the scene, Asian women in television dramas tended to only get cast as Mrs Patel at the corner shop or the caring social worker.

Luckily for her, and us, during the mid-Eighties, the BBC was looking for an Asian woman to co-write a script and Meera got the call.

The result was the 90-minute drama My Sister Wife, followed by the Channel 4 film, Bhaji On The Beach.

"I happened to be in the right place at the right time. After that, I got my foot in a lot of doors - just because I was there," she told a full house on Saturday.

One of the joys of writing as an Asian woman, she said, was confounding the stereotypes. "So often British Asian women are presented as passive. In reality, they are warm, funny, ironic and passionate."

It may have been political correctness which gave Meera the chance to break through initially but it is her massive talent which has brought her success as a writer, actor, playwright, comic and novelist. And, she insists, she has so many stories still to tell.