The first Bollywood-style Western musical since Andrew Lloyd Webber's wildly popular Bombay Dreams will open in Newcastle's Customs House Theatre next week.
Tickets have been sold out for The Pit And The Poppadum, co-scripted by UK-based dancing queen Honey Kalaria and a British writer, the late Clive Cullum.
Kalaria, who recently won the Best International Artiste Award in Lawrence D'Souza's Indian Babu is the inspiration behind the project which has the backing of venture capitalists in London.
Although it has a relatively small cast of 18, Kalaria describes it as a 'mini mini' version of Bombay Dreams. The producers are hopeful it will generate sufficient interest to take it all around the UK and to the US as well.
Described as a murder mystery thriller, the 90-minute production tells the story of what happens to a group of children when they are taken by their teacher to visit a haunted house.
Music and dance numbers are used to punctuate the musical and there is ample use as well of pantomime techniques as well to encourage audience participation.
"The actual story is different from what people would anticipate," explains Kalaria. "They would probably think its
a Bollywood musical, so it will be a love story, that there will be social issues, cultural issues.
"In fact, it is completely the opposite. We decided to go for completely the opposite and completely different. So we did more of a whodunit, but it is a comedy whodunit.
"Because I have child artistes as well as adult artistes in there and we have a story that would suit youngsters as well
as older people, and give them equal characters with equal roles and parts in the musical, we decided to go ahead with The Pit And The Poppadum."
Among the charcters is a Bollywood fan described to audience as a hero, but turns out to be a zero. "There is also a girl called Pretty who thinks she is such a sexy girl, a sex goddess who loves her makeup," Kalaria explains. "Even if she is chased by all the murderers, she is more worried about her makeup etc.
"Then we have Polly, who is completely accident prone. Wherever she goes, she causes havoc. Even if they find the clue, she ends up stepping on it, so she gets rid of the clues. We have another guy called Ghanshyam who is an Indian exchange student, a proper typical Indian. He takes his garam masalas with him everywhere he goes."
The comical murder plot is not allowed to get in the way of a love story that develops between the investigating detectives and the characters inside the haunted house.
Pantomime techniques are used to depict the character of the Grim Reaper who tries to kidnap or murder the other characters in the plot. "If you watch a Western pantomime, you will see how the characters saying things like, 'Oh yes you would,' and 'Oh no you won't,' that gets the audience participation," explains Kalaria. "We thought a baddie like the Grim Reaper who tries to kidnap or murder the characters, it would be great and the children would have a lot of fun.
"Within the story, of course, there are dances, quite a lot of dances, and what I have tried to do is introduce a bhangra dance, a traditional Indian folk dance, a modern Western dance and an acting dance. The people who watch it will see different costumes and colours.
"At the same time, there is a character called Dr Baleh Baleh. He is meant to be a doctor, but he is actually a veterinarian who keeps chasing everybody with these horse injections trying to heal them and cure them.
"Since he is a Punjabi, we have a bhangra to introduce him. At the end, there is a wedding, so that's the reason for a dandia dance."
Kalaria's only regret is that her co-writer Clive Cullum will not be alive to see the finished production. Cullum, who had been commissioned to write the script for a $200 million film starring Johnny Depp, passed away last year. "He would have loved to have seen the final product up and ready on the stage," Kalaria says.
