Bombay Dreams opens

16 June 2002

Bombay Dreams, award-winning composer A. R. Rahman’s Bollywood extravaganza for the stage, was produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and opened at the Apollo Theatre in London on June 16th 2002.

The show tells the story of Akaash, a young slum dweller, who dreams of becoming a huge movie star, and of his fateful encounter with beautiful Priya, the daughter of one of Bollywood’s greatest film directors

Bombay Dreams was directed by Steven Pimlott and featured a script by Meera Syal with lyrics by Don Black. The show came about after Andrew Lloyd Webber met film director Shekhar Kapur and the two discussed Shekhar’s idea of bringing Bollywood to a Western audience – a discussion that led to the eventual development of Bombay Dreams as a musical theatre project, a project they continued to collaborate on after Shekhar introduced Andrew to the composer A.R Rahman.

During the two years that followed, Andrew said: “it [became] my obsession to bring this melodic genius [Rahman] to the West End musical stage.” When he succeeded, ITV’s London Tonight called the show “the bravest attempt at a West End musical in years.”