Bollywood Star

Bollywood is now so big that 14 million Indians a day visit the cinema.

The Indian film industry churns out twice as many films as Hollywood, according to the new SBS Reality series, Bollywood Star.

So it’s high time an Australian (presumably, other than Tania Zaetta) had their chance to make it as a Bollywood performer. Enter a new 4 part talent series from WTFN, offering a role in a movie by prolific producer / director Mahesh Bhatt.

They arrive in their hundreds at an audition in Sydney: young, old, dancers, actors. There are wanna-be romantic leads, villains, character actors and comedians. Bollywood is so big it can open its arms to all. But Bollywood Star only wants one.

The Australian Judges are choreographer Dipti Patil, photographer Raj Suri and filmmaker Anupam Sharma. Sharma assumes the Simon Cowell role in early auditions. “What was the last Bollywood film you saw?” he asks one aspirant. “Love Guru,” says one. “Slumdog Millionaire,” says another. Bzzzz. They were Hollywood films. “Who is your favourite Bollywood actor?” More contestants luck out. These guys mean business.

But Bollywood is also unashamedly won over by beauty, and one young woman practically wins him over simply by walking in the door.

Others are asked to improvise acting scenes, and while Bollywood may be all about passion and spice most of these don’t translate well under the magnifying glass of a television camera. But while I see awkward histrionics, the judges see flashes of hope. Lucky I’m not a judge, I guess.

Like many Reality shows there are backstories of selected candidates. The guy who was promised a Bollywood role only to lose it at the last minute, girls who felt out of place growing up in a predominantly caucasian Australia,  a super-confident alpha-male, and even a self-confessed bogan girl who drives a tractor.

Selecting 24 proves a big ask for the judges, but halfway through the day they realise they are running out of time and ask candidates to audition two at a time. Imagine that happening on Australia’s Got Talent!

As anybody who has ever auditioned for any performance role knows, this is patently unfair. Especially when there are TV cameras there to capture the moment when one person is praised while another is almost ignored. Improvised acting scenes turn into scene-hogging, with most blocking the other actor’s material (rule #1 of Theatresports = always accept what the other gives you and add to it).

By now the auditions have become a shadow of their original brief, largely due to poor organisation. Is it because of limited budgets that everyone had to be squeezed through one day in one city? If so, some sort of pre-registration may have resulted in preparation that was fair to all the candidates. Here it just looks hurried and awkward.

It also doesn’t help that the Reality nasty judge was in fashion about 3-5 years ago. Now the genre is about positivity. The simple staging in a church or university hall also reeks of cost-cutting. Reality TV needs better production values than those on show and Australian audiences are used to a higher standard.

All of this is disappointing given the celebration of India that could be realised here. Perhaps this will shine through in later episodes when 6 finalists are sent to Mumbai to compete for the final place. I really hope so.

Bollywood Star‘s heart may be in the right place, but can we say the same of its budget?

Bollywood Star premieres 7:30pm Saturday on SBS ONE.