While prolific Bollywood composer A R Rahman was rewarded with two Oscars last year for his work on Slumdog Millionaire, he’d already made it to the West End stage in 2002, with his score for the Andrew Lloyd Webber produced musical, Bombay Dreams.
It ran for two years at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. When it first closed, it was initially meant to re-open a few months later, after being reworked for its 2004 Broadway debut. However when New York theatregoers didn’t find a passion for it, the show didn’t return to London either. However it seems the success of Slumdog has reignited interest, with Screen International reporting that it’s been announced at Cannes that Deepa Mehta is set direct a movie version of the musical, with Monsoon Wedding screenwriter Sabrina Dhawan adapting the book for the big screen.
The plot is a Romeo and Juliet style tale of a young man from the slums who dreams of being a Bollywood star. He falls for a rich woman who may be his ticket to the top, but she already has a fiance, and comes from a very different world to the one he’s used to. Although the plot of the musical was often said to be weak, Rahman’s score was widely praised when the show opened in London. It could well be the basis of a very dynamic East-meets-West movie, with Bollywood talent both in front of and behind the camera, and the likes of Lloyd Webber and Beverly Hills-based Marquee Pictures producing.
Shooting is set to begin sometime next year in Mumbai.