I went to the premier of the new Andrew Lloyd Webber show last night - Bombay Dreams .

The actual show was " ok " two songs were good (1 was ripped out of a film - wont say which one) and the other was shakalaka baby , the play is in English and so are the songs.........I didn't think it was that great and the audience didn't really seem to know what to make of it, i.e. was it serious or tongue in cheek..........but I had a cool time..reviews this morning are mixed some love it some hated it, I guess in the next few weeks we ' ll find out!

Meera Syal doesn't write great comedy (GGM has other writers), her story was pretty lacking in laughs and often things which were obviously mean to be funny didn't raise a laugh, one of her main characters we have seen many times before.

Personally I think it is a novelty show, Bollywood is really in vogue at the moment, and after all the Asians have watched it out of curiosity the audiences will dry up, although yesterday there was a pretty cosmopolitan mix of people...we had front row seats, the seats where the nearest to the stage and so were embarrassingly close to the front.

The music was good but to be honest of lot of the lyrics in English made great music sound like pretty lame English songs, because the English lyrics were trite.

We stood up before it started to see who else was there...AR Rahman signed my program for me (the co-producer with Lloyd Webber), and we saw loads of celebrities there like......... Bend it like Beckham girl, Sanjay from eastenders, some east is east people, Denis van outen, Baby spice, Petula clark, Lawrence lewellin brown, Nikki Clark, Dr Raj off this morning, Barry Humphries (Dame Edna Everage ), Bob Geldof, Grace Jones, Anika rice.........but biggest celebs for me were from Indian stuff Naseerudin Shah and Shah rukh khan (who sat about 8 rows behind us!), meera syal was there so was Ramaola Bachan, Lisa Rao the English obviously had no idea who they were but the Indians went nuts for them loads more but I forget now!

I'd gone straight from work so was dressed pretty casually but there was loads of English celebs and others in Lenghas etc which was nice to see.....

got to say though Bob Geldof takes scruffy to new heights, comb? razor? iron? these words mean nothing to the man.




Edited By Awaaz on June 20 2002 at 06:08

I went to see the show last night on its second day and have to agree with you, the story script and humor was poor. But it was once again Rahman who saved the day with his excellent music. Even the remixes of songs from Sapney, Taal, Dil Se..., Rangeela and Mudahavan were top! Poor show, saved by wonderful music. Lyrics are avarage when compared to other west end musicals like Chicago, and my all time fav musical Joesph and the technicolour dreamcoat.

Will have to buy the CD album in the shops on Monday.

After this Rahman should now focus on working on an DISNEY animation project! He has the gift to work in the west.



Edited By Shahran Sunny Audit on June 20 2002 at 21:19

I heard A R Rahman will be signing copies of the Bombay Dreams soundtrack on Monday 24th June at Tower records at 6pm.

Yeap you heard right, I'll be there getting my copy.

yaar sunny, send us the autographed ones too, buy a couple! if u can, we can pay u, or as u wish, swap for dvd(s) etc!! :vsneaky: