FRANKIE GOES TO BOLLYWOOD, 4 Stars

Posted on August 4, 2024August 4, 2024

FRANKIE GOES TO BOLLYWOOD, 4 Stars

By. lambco
Tag Musical Theatre, Southbank Centre

FRANKIE GOES TO BOLLYWOOD
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre
31st July to 18th Aug 2024

“An all-singing-all-dancing tale of heroes and villains – with the costumes and spectacle of a Bollywood classic.

Conceived by Artistic Director of Rifco, Pravesh Kumar MBE, ‘Frankie Goes to Bollywood ‘is a spectacular all-singing-all-dancing tale of heroes and villains, with all the costumes and the spectacle of a Bollywood feature film. It tells the tale of being British in Bollywood and explores what it takes to get to the top.

Frankie never wanted to be a star, all she’s ever really wanted is a close and loving family – but after a chance encounter with an up-and-coming director, she finds herself transported to Bollywood, cast in a movie and thrust into the limelight. Might the Bollywood world provide her with the family and community she has always dreamed of?

Suddenly Frankie is immersed in the world of fame and fortune but as she climbs the sparkling staircase of stardom, each step makes her question about what she is willing to do, or be subjected to, for success.

Drawing inspiration from both traditional Bollywood music and the best of western musical theatre, the music for Frankie goes to Bollywood is a carefully integrated hybrid – designed to appeal to lovers of the Bollywood genre and also lovers of a good old West End extravaganza.

Bollywood as an industry generates over £2 billion a year, and globally the films have an audience of 1.3billion. In the UK a successful Bollywood film can be expected to take as much as £4 million – so it’s little wonder that the glamorous lure of Bollywood stardom appeals to many British-South Asian young people. Frankie goes to Bollywood is inspired by those true stories of Brits in Bollywood

Alongside a couple of very well-known British-born faces in Bollywood including Katrina Kaif and Alia Bhatt, there are also dozens more actors, both male and female born in Britain who have established successful careers. Frankie goes to Bollywood is inspired by many of their stories, and by Pravesh’s own experience of being a Brit in Bollywood, and by what he observed in terms of British-born women’s experience in the industry.”

Review by Richard Lambert, 4 Stars

This is such a fun show! Spectacular, large cast, live band with a Bollywood feel!

The story is predictable and simple but who cares when there’s so much action going on?

So let’s start with the lighting. Wow! Taking wireless rechargeable LEDs and placing them in old fashioned Fresnels on wheeled tripods is genius. Having the cast move these beauties around the stage in tripod-ography is genius! Not only are they setting the scene but they’re genuinely used as lighting instruments here and there.
And that’s just the start – once we arrive in Bollywood it becomes a multi-layerd World of Colour. Well done to Philip Gladwell for the 1000s of lighting looks that are just so good!!!!

Talking of the cast moving things around – there’s a lot of staging and it’s all done in a considered interesting manner by the cast. Credit to both the choreographer and director in pulling all this together.

The set starts small and simple and then reveals and grows upstage in depth. With multiple proscenium arches channeling indian/arabic design, silver slash (you can’t beat the old stage effects!), magic lantern bars flying in, trellis cloth, rear grid of lights on fly, and then the band behind all this. It has a visual perspective that adds to the spectacular visuals. In addition there are multiple set pieces that are wheeled on and off. Clearly this set is made for touring so while it might look a little small in the Queen Elizabeth Hall it has to also fit into regional touring theatres.

Flying electric signs and plenty of leg-warmers and sweatbands ensure the production doesn’t come across as taking itself too seriously. A well balanced show for laughs and talent.

The sound worked well for the live mics but the mix of backing vocal tracks and solo principal songs wasn’t always in perfect balance but that might depend on where you’re sat in relation to the speakers. The spoken sections sometimes relying on the mics too much. Surely it must now be time for drama schools to teach the art of lip sync since it’s now so much in use in live performance.

The cast are great! Sporting many variety of colourful costume sets they sing and dance with many styles of dancing – often slanted to give the Indian flavour. Stand-out dancer being Keldeep Goswani. He’s a pocket rocket!

With the book supposedly exposing “Bollywood behind the scenes” it’s interesting to see how sometimes there’s a deliberate portrayal of naff and cheesy and then a switch to “reality” and the ensemble soar. It’s a very entertaining show on so many levels.

It was great to see a full house of majority Indian ethnicity. I hope they enjoyed the show as much as I did and went with the story that in many ways pokes fun at the Bollywood film industry. I think they did. Last week, there was a show at the Southbank “Afrique en Cirque” that engaged an audience of, from what I could tell, majority African ethnicity. Huge congratulations to the programming and marketing teams to bring such productions to the Southbank and engage with audiences that are smaller majority in the West End. Bravo!

Frankie goes to Bollywood is a hugely entertaining show that everyone who wants a fun night out and has some joie de vivre would enjoy and should go see!