Bombay Dreams, Apollo Victoria, London
Gooey Bombay mix that fails to fulfil its promise
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Your support makes all the difference.A £4m budget, a large cast, a story about the mad Indian movie-making industry – Bombay Dreams may have the right ingredients, but the whole samosa is less than the sum of its parts. It suffers from an uncertain tone, an identity crisis that isn't much of a drama. The show leaves one unmoved despite all the colour and movement – and there isn't even enough of that.
Meera Syal's book has plenty of tart lines. "Goddess of love!'' a non-fan sneers at a movie queen's sobriquet. "Of love handles, more like.'' But she is less successful at the big, heartfelt emotion this kind of show needs, settling instead for unconvincing sentimentality. Her hero, Akaash, is cocky and crude, but when he sets eyes on the heroine, there is a gooey musical phrase and he sings, "Is this love? It feels like love." Later, when Akaash becomes a film star, and denies his slum background in front of his old neighbours, a thunderclap sounds and the heavens pour forth angry rain.
Priya, his beloved, wants to direct a movie that shows the real Bombay, where bulldozers crush people along with their homes as slums are cleared to profit the rich. But, though we are supposed to admire her crusading spirit, we're shown a scene from the film, in which Akaash, as a crusading lawyer, strikes attitudes with his briefcase and excited destitute women do a happy dance. It's also difficult to take seriously a villain who wears a single black glove and laughs like a drain in a Christopher Lee film.
It's not only the spirits in Steven Pimlott's production that failed to hit the heights. A R Rahman has written a few pleasant tunes, but the overall sound is more background than foreground, and a lot of the music is routine "oriental'' stuff, the sort of thing one would hear in an old movie behind a snake charmer or a treacherous veiled lady. The romantic numbers are familiar too, with the instant-wistful sound we know from many, many sappy musicals. Nor do Don Black's lyrics hold any surprises. When Akaash says that he is "like the eagle, born to fly'', we can sing the next line along with him, "right across the open sky''.
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.
Raza Jaffrey and Preeya Kalidas are perfectly adequate as the leads, but were obviously chosen for their looks and physical grace rather than any acting or singing talent.
It's a shame that this potentially thrilling subject is crippled by formula and mediocrity, but, then again, its time is out of joint. When "India'' does not mean songs and sequins, but terror and panic, one needs more than this shoddy glamour to forget reality.
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