Will Rahman taste the sweet smell of success?
The buzz on the musical Bombay Dreams
It is a charming show; everyone will have a great time," says director Pimlott. "It is not just song and dance. Meera has given the show a sharp edge, and it tells a powerful story about dreams and ambitions and the ultimate need to know oneself."

Lloyd Webber and Pimlott are so convinced the audiences will take to the show sponatenously that they have included a live qawwali at the end of the show. "We trust the audience, who have travelled so long with us on this journey, will love the finale," says Pimlott, who says the best Bollywood movies are like Shakespearean plays --- entertaining and offering moral lessons.

Akash, the young slum dweller of Bollywood Dreams, learns many life lessons about the dangers of fame by the end of the show.

If the show becomes a hit, it would offer some life lessons to the theatre world as well.





http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2002/jun/15dreams.htm



Edited By arsh on June 17 2002 at 12:25

Will London fall for Bombay's dreams?


AP [ MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2002 4:02:30 PM ]

MUMBAI: The boss of Bollywood music hopes audiences in London's West End will soon be gyrating to a new beat.


A R Rahman composed the tunes for Bombay Dreams, a $ 6 mn show produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber that Rahman hopes will help give Indian showbiz a wider international profile.


"It's very exciting. This will be an exposure of the big industry that exists in India, of the films we make, of life in India," said Rahman, who has written soundtracks for more than 50 movies. "This musical is a culmination of all this," the 35-year-old Rahman said by telephone from London.


It remains to be seen how West End theatergoers will react to some of the Bollywood staples featured in Bombay Dreams.


Lloyd Webber and Rahman have included a fight and a 'wet dance'. "You must have women in wet saris for anything connected to Bollywood and this is a total Bollywood number - very cheesy, very corny," said choreographer Farah Khan in Mumbai.


The risk remains that a Bollywood theme may attract Asians only and Westerners will stay away. Dire predictions about the musical's fate have already appeared in Indian newspapers.


"Webber's dream theme may fade away," warned The Times of India.


Lloyd Webber acknowledged challenges in selling the musical on the West End, but he thinks Rahman is worth betting on.


"I know he is very famous (in India), but in England he means nothing at all," Lloyd Webber told The Times of India. "But he is probably one of the most exciting composers around and the musical has got to be able to embrace that."


Rahman is already setting his sights beyond London _ he wants to see the musical play in New York, too.


"It has potential," Rahman said. "It depends on how it does in the West End, then it can go to Broadway and will go to Toronto."


Hoping to give Bombay Dreams its best shot, choreographer Khan has been juggling her Bollywood commitments carefully. She's now spending most of her time in London ahead of opening night on June 19.


One of the top challenges is doing the musical in English.


"It's a big question mark how the songs will sound in English and if this does well, it will be an opening for future Indian musicals abroad," Rahman said.


The dancing is another issue. The cast of 40, largely British, has had to adapt to Bollywood style.


"They are used to jazz dancing, kicks, pirouette, splits. But I've had to teach them Bollywood dancing, which is upfront," Khan said. "A more rounded movement."


But practice seems to be paying off.


"They are finally getting a hang of the style and having a ball," said Khan, who has choreographed dances for more than 30 Hindi movies.


Ornate costumes, melodramatic dialogue, an overdose of songs coupled with a wealthy female lead who overcomes family opposition to marry the poor hero, or vice versa, is the standard plot for many of the 800 Bollywood movies produced every year.


The plot is straight out of an Indian movie script, with the daughter of a rich Bollywood producer falling in love with a boy from a Bombay slum, who wants to make it big in the movies. Appropriate enough, as some of Bollywood's best try to make their mark in the West End.

Yaar Naz! Bombay dreams ke video clips nikal kaheen se? shaka laka baby??

yup..they are on b4u..honest opinion not very impressed with the song nor the video...

a mate of mine found the show to be tiresome and dull! I was quite shocked as he is a massive Rahman fan like me. He said Meera Syal's perception of Bollywood was full of twenty year old stereotypes that are now dated and preditable. Its seems Syal isn't in touch with present Indian cinema!

I know a couple of people who have seen this. They were very impressed with the music, dancing and the acting. I will hopfully go and see it in the next few weeks and let you know what I think.

For 40 quid I'd rather buy several DVD's from India Weekly!
Thats where the smart money goes!

Pictures from the premiere night;



More here;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi....896.stm

Ali

i wudnt mind watching it but i know i cudnt be bothered seeming its only showing the westend.. ! but was watching the making of it the other nite and its a bit irritating listening to the actors putting on that false desi accent which is apparent in many characterisation roles of people from back home.. i think it wud drive me nuts watching this theatre play...!

yeah fake desi accents was irritating most of the caste is british asian and it was bad hearing that, they even sang in fake accents........later on they seemed to loose their accents in some of the songs for some reason...

uk version of komal nahata bashes bombay dreams..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Artic ... 51,00.html

UK critics give Bombay Dreams a thumbs up


excerpts
telegraph.co.uk

Denise van Outen, the television presenter, stole some of the
composer's thunder. She arrived wearing a borrowed £500,000 diamond
necklace and a white lace mini dress by Scott Henshaw (who designed
Jodie Kidd's little-to-the-imagination dress for the recent Spider-Man
premiere) decorated with revealing scenes from the Kama Sutra.(photo
bbc.co.uk)

"The Kama Sutra! She's gone bonkers," remarked one astonished friend.

Lady Lloyd Webber, the composer's wife and a keen horsewoman,
considered a triumphal march to the Apollo, Victoria, on elephant
back. "But I found that there was nowhere in Victoria to stable an
elephant," she said. "Not even the Royal Mews."

She made do with a sequinned corset and skirt, made in Bombay by
Manish Malhotra, which arrived fashionably late, two days before the
premiere.

Other guests invited included a rich mix of East and West; Liza
Minelli, Jerry Hall, Mel B, Laksmi Mittal, the steel billionaire and
Labour Party donor in the doghouse when Tony Blair helped him to buy a
mill in Romania, the former Indian Miss World Diana Hayden, Bob
Geldof, the musician Talvin Singh, Sir Michael Caine and his Indian
wife Shakira, and Shah Rukh Khan, the Tom Cruise of Bollywood.

For the party, guests were taken to the Pacha nightclub nearby,
decorated with swathes of embroidered Indian fabrics and
jasmine-scented roses, and fed Indian food from street market barrows.

The musical is a lavish spectacle inspired by Bollywood films,
complete with waterfalls, "wet sari" and wedding scenes

independnt.co.uk
What is a surprise is the meagre, empty look of the stage. Most of the
time the action takes place on the bottom quarter of the proscenium,
while the rest is simply blank or filled with a huge movie poster. The
dances are repetitious, the hip-shaking, head-waggling movements
quickly losing their novelty, and never enlarging character or
furthering plot. Indian costumes can knock your eye out when you walk
down any Bombay street, but Mark Thompson's saris look as if they
climbed out of the bargain bin.



Edited By Awaaz on June 20 2002 at 10:35

http://www.bombaydreamsthemusical.com

official website