MUMBAI: Anupam Kher launched the London branch of his film school Actor Prepares, thereby giving London its first official Bollywood Film School.

The likes of Boman Irani, Urmila Matondkar, Kher, Tabu and Mahesh Bhatt will be coaching Britain’s young students in film studies.

The school, which will open in September, will be based in the West London Ealing Studios that made a string of well-known English films in the 1950s. It will work out of the Ealing Institute of Media where students will be enrolled in a three-month intensive course taught by Bollywood actors and film-makers.

Sixty students will be admitted in the first year and fees have been set at £6,000. Although most students are expected to be South Asians, Kher said there was interest among white Britons as well.

The school is intended to improve the quality of Bollywood’s notorious over-the-top hammy acting.

The school is a partnership between Actor Prepares, which Kher began three years ago; Heathrow City Partnership, a local not-for-profit organization; and the Ealing Institute of Media, which is a part of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College.

Kher also has plans to launch his acting school in Durban and Sydney.