Despite being in her 20s Mandeep Dhillon has made a name for herself playing teenagers. And now she is taking on her youngest role to date – 13-year-old Meena, in the first ever stage adaptation of Meera Syal’s autobiographical novel Anita and Me, which opens at Theatre Royal Stratford East next week.

Adapted by the award-winning playwright, Tanika Gupta, it is a poignant coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s that follows what happens when Meena, the irreverent teenage daughter of the only Punjabi family in the mining village of Tollington,becomes friends with the impossibly feisty Anita (Jalleh Alizadeh).

“It’s my youngest part I have ever played, and probably ever will, “ says Mandeep.

“She’s 13, which is crazy, but I think with theatre you have that artistic licence and can get away with it.

“I do like teenager roles. I feel like if I got to 30 and was still playing them it would be a bit boring but it’s fun because you don’t get to be that immature in real life.”

She adds: “I also love doing a Birmingham accent as some of my family are from there. And I have to sing as well which I have never done professionally before so I’m really excited about it all.”

In the play Meena becomes caught between her two cultures but Mandeep, who was raised in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, says she has never had to face a tug of war with her heritage.

“I think the first generation who came over here will relate to it but I have never experienced that and neither has my mum because she was born here and I don’t really have that pull.

“If it is a wedding I will go to temple and I think that side of the culture is lovely and I respect the faith but I’m more of a spiritualist and don’t really like the word religion.

“My mum was born in Coventry and is as British as anything. She is a single parent so I think that made a difference. She raised three of us and is a very strong woman and I guess that made me independent and grow up more.

“I have friends who don’t even know how to work a washing machine and I was doing that when I was ten.”

Mandeep, who is in the process of moving to Woodford, started acting professionally straight from college and says she is lucky enough not to have stopped since, with roles in Some Dogs Bite, The Thick of It, Some Girls and most recently Fried on BBC Three. She has also just filmed two episodes of The Lucky Man with James Nesbitt.

“A lot of people say it’s really difficult industry but I haven’t really experienced that; I have been very fortunate to have got an agent and auditions and ‘got in the room’, which is the hardest part. And not just for Asian characters.

“Amazingly I have never been stereotyped. Some of the biggest roles I have done, the casting has originally been for an English girl.”

Although her dream is to star in a Hollywood action blockbuster, gym lover Mandeep says she is excited about being back on stage and working with Ayesha Dharker, who played Meena’s mother in the film version, Ameet Chana who she appeared with in BBC drama My Jihad and, of course, Meera Syal.

The drama’s creator, who now lives in Highgate, adds: “I am excited to see Anita and Me coming to the heart of the East End at Theatre Royal Stratford East.

“It is a theatre that I have worked closely with in the early stages of my career and an area of London where I also spent many years living.

“It will be nostalgic to see my childhood story played out on the stage there and I’m thrilled that London audiences will get to witness what life was like for a young Punjabi girl growing up in the West Midlands.”

Theatre Royal Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, E15 1BN, October 29 to November 21. Details: 020 8534 0310, stratfordeast.com