Review: Frankie Goes to Bollywood (Queen Elizabeth Hall)

Review by Dan Sinclair

⭐️⭐️⭐️

If there was one thing I knew about Frankie Goes to Bollywood before going in, it was that they’ve got a fantastic marketing department, as I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen that poster on the underground. And without fail, every time I see it, I think - ‘that’s a funny title, that is’. 

Following a regional tour, Rifco Theatre Company bring their latest production to the Southbank Centre. Led by Artistic Director Pravesh Kumar, since 1999 they have created work centring the British South Asian experience. Their most ambitious project to date follows the story of Frankie and her dream to become a Bollywood star. This is a dream shared by her best friend (and sister cousin) Goldy. After bumping into big-time Bollywood director Prem by the bins behind the cinema, she gets invited to audition for his next movie. Fast forward a few musical numbers and a flight to B-town, she’s in. Moulded by choreographer/designer/everything man Shona, she meets heartthrob legend Raju King. Thanks to his toupée, plastic surgery, and a patriarchal system that doesn’t punish men for ageing but instead rejects female actresses the second they get within 60 feet of a wrinkle - he’s still the top dog. He quickly takes Frankie as his new love interest, kicking aside his former lover Malika. We see Frankie become corrupted by the poison of the industry before she and Malika decide to change it from the inside. 

The staging clearly draws heavily from Bollywood with some beautifully cheeky moments. It really reminds me of the work of Wise Children and Emma Rice: on-stage wind machines, the use of torches in choreography, a shimmer curtain and a big old neon sign with the name of the show on it. It’s extravagant and endlessly inventive, finding clever ways to stage red carpets, working film sets, a cinema in Milton Keynes and the numerous other locations we are whizzed through. The Bollywood inspiration creates some issues in Kumar’s script. It’s a Bollywood musical about the world of Bollywood, so it is giving high melodrama. We have our heroes, villains, fights, musical numbers and slightly corny dialogue. In knowingly replicating these tropes, it is a tricky line to tread. For something to be camp, it cannot (from the outsider looking in) know that it is camp. Rocky Horror never knows that it is a send-up of 50’s B-movies. In its script and performances, Frankie Goes To Bollywood leans too far into winking at an audience, telling us - don’t worry, we know what we’re doing. This makes much of the delightful cheese found across the dialogue, performances and plot lose some of its sincerity and charm. It’s hard to laugh at melodrama that doesn’t take itself seriously as melodrama. For a script that is trying to challenge the format and culture of Bollywood, it too easily conforms to a generic plot leaving little to no surprises for an audience. 

Niraj Chag and Tasha Taylor Johnson have done some great work creating a series of musical numbers that somehow combine the big Bollywood sound with C’est La Vie by B*witched (and I spent a long time on the tube back trying to work out the best way to describe the score and this is what I landed on.) The musical numbers are a real treat and pass the test of having at least one number that becomes an ear-worm, helped in part by a megamix at the end. There are a few technical issues: the mixing was often off, leaving the band to drown out much of the vocals plus a few lightbulbs on Rebecca Browers grand set seemed to have a mind of their own. Choreography by Nicola Mac and Andy Kumar is energetic and perhaps the finest way the show invokes that feeling of Bollywood, it’s instantly recognisable and they nail it. Costumes by Andy Kumar are similarly lavish, it wouldn’t quite feel like Bollywood glamour without beautiful saris and an ageing male star clad in leopard print. 

In the titular role, Laila Zaidi gives a fine performance with some wonderful vocals. However, she most notably falls victim to the weak script, at times forcing her into pantomime territory rather than allowing her to play corny melodramatic dialogue straight. Completing the brown sugar sisterhood, ‘always sweet, always unrefined’ is Katie Stasi as Goldy. A loyal friend to Frankie, (even though Frankie is genuinely just a bit horrid to her for no reason, even in the emotional conclusion of the show) she gets some great ballads and sends them right to the back of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. As ‘The King’ of Bollywood, Geet Sagar brilliantly captures the sleaze and slime that needs to be turfed out of the industry. Somehow in the world of Bollywood, Gigi Zahir’s Shona is the biggest prima donna on the stage. Every costume he emerges in is more extravagant than the last, he has some real show-stealing moments. 

I see what the show is trying to do, but in trying to invoke the style of Bollywood classics it often falls on the bad side of cheesy. But ignoring this and embracing the music and choreography, it’s most definitely a fun night out. Frankie Goes To Bollywood - always sweet, sometimes unrefined. 

Frankie Goes To Bollywood is showing at the Southbank Centre until 18th August.

Tickets can be found here: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/performance-dance/frankie-goes-bollywood