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Bombay Dreams - London's best & brightest new musicalJun 23 '02 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Andrew Lloyd Webber production - Bombay Dreams - Apollo Victoria London - a must see! I decided long ago that I didn’t like musicals. As I grew older it seemed to me that musicals were growing younger and therefore had less to offer. A vivid reminder of this for me was "The Lion King". I was taken to see this by some well meaning friends shortly after it opened in London years ago. People were clapping at sets and costumes before a word was uttered or a note sang and I nearly fell asleep in the second half. This is what musical theatre had been reduced to. Two things compelled me to see Bombay Dreams. Firstly, Meera Syal. She has written a film called "Bahji on the Beach". She appears in comedy TV – “Goodness Gracious Me” and “The Kumars at No. 42”, both on the BBC. And I’ve read one her books titled “Life Isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee” (which is now being made into a mini-series for the BBC, yippee!). Her career is far more extensive than that, these are just the things which I’m familiar with and have enjoyed immensely. Andrew Lloyd Webber, clever man that he is, hired her to write the story for this musical. Which brings me to the second reason I decided to see this musical – Andrew Lloyd Webber. For this show he takes on the role of producer, handing over the creativity to a well chosen and talented group of people. Had he been composer or lyricist I doubt I would have bothered to go. Instead, with all his big bucks, he went straight to the best and brightest and if you want to put a Bollywood musical on stage then you go to India. India is responsible for the second largest film industry in the world outside of the US. Something like 500,000 people a day go to the movies in Bombay alone (or Mumbai as it’s now known). Most of these people go to see a Bollywood musical, usually a strange concoction of trite stories of star crossed lovers with elaborate dance sequences. Think what Jackie Chan might do if he were a choreographer and you’d be getting the picture. Lord Lloyd Webber hired the man who writes the best music for this stuff, A.R. Rahman, a man who has sold more records that Britney Spears and Madonna combined. The lyrics were written by Don Black, a legend in the business with one Oscar, five Academy Award nominations, three Tony nominations, two Tony awards and the list goes on with this guy. The writer, Meera Syal, we’ve mentioned and the choreographer, Farah Khan, has worked on dozens of films in India and received many awards there. They’ve been working on Bombay Dreams for 3 years with £4.5 million of their bosses money. The end result I’m happy to say, is that musical theatre has something new to show us. I saw Bombay Dreams during its preview run two nights before it opened on June 19th and managed to get seats 4 rows from the front on the middle isle. I have to admit that I wasn’t coming here with high expectations, but I enjoyed almost every minute of the show. Most people would be familiar with the story line. Poor boy Akaash (Raza Jaffrey), from the slums dreams of being a movie star. He finds himself in a situation where he meets rich girl Priya (Preeya Kalidas), daughter of big Bollywood movie director. They fall in love but she’s engaged to an evil lawyer and he’s poor trash. But wouldn't you know it - it turns out that he’s quite talented and gets spotted by rich girls father and before the end of Act I he’s a big star whose forgotten his humble beginnings. It’s a classic theme with many variations. I would have to agree with some of the reviews I’ve read that the story does rather go all over the place. There are many characters here and many other stories, some of them possibly even more interesting. Like the eunuchs and one in particular, Sweetie (Raj Ghatak), who is in love with the male lead. There’s corruption in the film industry, poverty amongst excess and glamour, and it even flirts with feminism, managing to fit in a Miss World Pageant. All of these issues would probably make great stories but really they are just devices used to get Akaash and Priya together and still have time for the songs. Act I opens with “Bombay Awakes”. Set in the slums, you can see the city in silhouette beyond a large pipe that people are living in and hanging washing from. Of course it’s sanitised. These slum dwellers look well fed and healthy and they need to be in order to do all that dancing. “Shakalaka Baby” (being released as a single this week) is the big song and dance number in Act I. They even managed to have a dancing fountain on the stage to give you the obligatory wet dancers found in most Bollywood films (censorship is strict there and ecstatic wet dancers can mean oh so many things). The music is decidedly Indian and the choreography is fresh. The dancers aren’t using the standard ballet and jazz movements you find on Broadway or in the West End. The costumes are vibrant and colourful and there are words and characterisations which westerners wouldn’t know. The theatre, The Apollo Victoria, has been completely refurbished after “Starlight Express” closed at the end of its 14 year run. The sets are fairly simple but very effective. The oversize billboards advertising movies worked very well for me and there was even a large JCB digger arm at one point, trying to knock down the slum where our new movie star used to live. Overall this doesn’t feel like a white man’s take on an ethnic culture. This is the first all British Indian cast in London’s West End and probably the first all Indian cast in any London theatre. Initially they had problems casting the show but their perseverance paid off. Act II opens strongly with “Chaiyya Chaiyya”. A recycled song from an Indian movie it has a strong tribal beat and concludes with every cast member on stage dancing in unison. Unfortunately it gets a bit slow from here. There is a bit of prancing about the theatre carrying the Hindu God Ganesh for a festival about to take place but then pathos and tragedy descend and before you know it the show is over. Which is my one beef with this show. The bittersweet ending didn’t close any circles, which can be a useful device, but it didn’t leave me trying to think it all out on my own. It left me thinking, “Is it over? What happened? Oh, it’s over.”. Maybe that’s a good thing. We all wanted more. Certainly the excitement in the audience was palpable the night I was there. I heard many people asking where they could buy the music (the show hadn’t officially opened yet so CD’s weren’t on sale for another 2 days). I myself bought 3 programmes (2 to send to Indian friends overseas). It was interesting to see that there were a lot of Indians in the audience, maybe up to a third. And this, I hope, is the ultimate success of “Bombay Dreams”. It got me to go and see a musical. If it’s successful maybe more producers will take a risk instead of just re-hashing old movies and old musicals to guarantee sales. Maybe then musicals can reach further and bring new people into the theatre. Bombay Dreams Apollo Victoria Theatre, London (p.s. any advisor type persons out there - couldn't put this in the Theatre section. How about a general category there for shows & such outside the US?)  |
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