MUMBAI: Gurinder Chaddha has finished the script work on the musical Westend stage version of her most well-known film ‘Bend It Like Beckham’. She’s naturally kicked about going back to her roots with her beloved film.
“In a way ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ Musical is a homage to the Hindi movies I grew up watching where all the emotions were expressed through song and music. We even have a song where the father sings his emotions about his parental duty to his daughter. If that isn’t K L Saigal coming to Westend, what is? The music composer is the legendary Howard Goodall and the lyricist is Charles Hart who wrote the lyrics of ‘The Phantom Of The Opera’."
There will of course be a teekha chatpata desi flavour to the Westend version of Beckham. Reveals Gurinder, “My dear friend Bally Sagoo will be in the mix too to ensure we have the British Indian flavour.The musical is turning into a kind of Fiddler On The Roof set in Southall with a father lamenting the choices of his daughters and a mother banging on about ‘tradition’ and when my husband Paul Berges and I were writing the book for the musical we found it very helpful to refer to Fiddler as it is in essence a very Indian musical.”
The lead that was played by Parminder Nagra ten years ago would have to be chosen on the basis of the actress’ ability to sing dance and act. Says Gurinder excitedly, “We will be going live on our website and I will be asking anyone who thinks she can sing and dance and play Jess on the Westend stage to upload their audition to the website.”
