Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan The Mumbai of My Dreams: till 29 October

Touring

Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan The Mumbai of My Dreams: Sohaila Kapur
Touring
Runs 1hr 35min One interval

Review Hazel Brown, Nuffield Theatre, 9 October

The exuberance and colour of Bollywood comes to the stage.
The extremes of the colourful city, Bombay, are reflected in the plot and characters of this musical that parodies the style of Indian movies of the sixties and seventies. An evening of naïve fun means you leave smiling, but the depth of the experience is as light and fleeting as sticky Indian sweets.

The story is played out on the platform of a suburban railway station, where an innocent young Hindu girl falls in love with a Muslim boy. However, her mother has ambitions for her daughter to break out of poverty by becoming a film star. Radha refuses to lie on the casting couch' of the producer, which precipitates the crisis - her true love is imprisoned and the only way she can see of freeing him is to submit to the producer's demands. However, she reckons without the help of the motley the chai wallah, the drunk, the prostitute, the politician and the gofer.

This standard Bollywood plot is leavened with catchy songs, undemanding dance routines and good humour. The best performances come from the sinuous and sexy prostitute, Ayesha Bose and the drunken Johnny, Dhruv Jagasia, in fine comic form. Sonam Singh Kaira and Raghav Chana pull at the audience's heart strings as the young lovers, with Shibani Puri almost extracting hisses from the audience as the evilly ambitious Ma. Radha, the young girl, is never really threatened by Oroon K Das' eye rolling, trouser dropping, lascivious producer, who bullies his pocket politician and gofer unmercifully.

The colours of the costumes and set are richly redolent of the sub-continent. The whole colourful confection makes for an evening of lighthearted fun and it was certainly good to see a culturally diverse audience of all ages enjoying a live performance.

Hazel Brown

CAST
Radha: Sonam Singh Kaira
Rahim: Raghav Chanana
Johnny: Druv Jagasia
Ayesha: Priyanka Bose
Ma/Bai: Shibani Puri
Ramu Monty Gupta
DDIJ Kaladhanda (The Producer): Oroon K Das
Politician: Ankur Bhardwaj
Choto: Gaurav Gupta
Boy: Dinesh Garg

Director: Sanjoy Roy
Choreographer: Gilles Chuyen
Composer: Jawahar Wattal
Set Designer: Sumant Jaykrishnan
Costumes: Sonal Kalra
Lighting: Jaspreet S Uppal

2003-10-19 17:39:08