UK critics call the musical ‘shoddy and lacklustre’
LONDON: The Bollywood actress who became the darling of the British masses when she stoically faced racist bullying in the Celebrity Big Brother house at the beginning of the year, is now being derided as ‘opportunist’ and ‘cheap’.
Shilpa Shetty’s new musical Miss Bollywood which finally came to the UK on Saturday has been branded by critics as ‘shoddy’ and ‘lacklustre’. “Given the anguish and humiliation that Shetty suffered in the CBB house, the British public are probably prepared to forgive her for almost anything. Even so, she is pushing her luck with this shoddy piece of opportunism,” said theatre critic Sam Marlowe.
Miss Bollywood was due to open in the Mecca of theatre — London’s West End, but the lack of takers forced the musical to go to Germany first. The UK tour began in Manchester on November 3 and will eventually culminate at the Royal Albert Hall in December. “Our admiration for the grace and generosity with which Shetty stood up to Jade Goody and her ignorant, xenophobic cronies made a winner and heroine of the Bollywood actress. But this ill-conceived, half-baked star vehicle does her no favours,” said Marlowe.
Critics feel that Shetty should have used the goodwill towards her to show her real talent but instead she simply replayed her reality TV role ‘as proud, injured innocent’. The show has been scripted by Bollywood screenwriter Niranjan Iyengar and follows the conflict between an Indian dance teacher, Maya played by Shetty whose school is under threat from the Olympic building programme, and a Westernised impresario who wants Maya to join him and add spice to his company.
However the script definitely exploits Shetty’s stint in CBB with lines like “I’ve learnt that life can’t be all Goody Goody”. The story is thin and the show relies heavily on Shetty ‘undulating her killer curves’ to hits from Bollywood films. “The dancers are mechanical, the script diabolical, the acting amateurish and the costumes look nastily cheap,” writes Marlowe in The Times, giving Miss Bollywood a resounding thumbs down.
