Welcome, welcome, make yourself at home. The Kapoors have invited you to their humble home to witness their hopes and dreams come to fruition. Part stage play and part dance spectacular, the show follows Mrs Kapoor, played for great comic effect by Parle Patel, through all the trials and tribulations of marrying off her eldest daughter.
The show is deliberately Bollywood inspired and between the traditional theatre scenes there were many dances, along with some drummers, and singers in the form of Shahid Abbas Khan and Drupti Vaja. The stage was set with a living room on the left and a kitchen on the right, where Mrs Kapoor and her long-suffering husband, played by Darshan Varsani, affectionately bicker in a way that Indian families would relate to. Certainly the lady sitting next to me found some of the observational humour very funny, in particular a joke about the food at a rival wedding “swimming in oil”.
After setting the scene, it’s not long before we are introduced to the five lovely daughters. The design of the show cleverly had a big screen at the back of the stage. This was used for displaying backdrops for the dance numbers and the representation of the wedding hall, but it also doubled as an iPad or mobile phone screen when a character was using one so we could share in what they were seeing. This was often used to comic effect, such as when Mrs Kapoor starts checking out potential husbands for her eldest daughter, Priya.
The dancing, of which there was plenty, was choreographed by Archana Kumar, Anjali Janani (who played Priya), and Rupal Thakrar (who played Sapna, another of the daughters). Kumar, who also wrote and directed the show, is also the founder of AK Bollywood Dance which provided all the dancers for the production. The music and dancing gave the show a real Bollywood feel, although it could also be said it had a Bollywood running time. The show ran for almost three hours, not including the interval, although it never felt dull. The young children in the row in front, however, did get rather restless midway through the second half.
The show was full of jokes, many of which would be just as accessible to a non-Indian audience as to an Indian one, and there were plenty of moments of physical comedy too, such as when Mr and Mrs Kapoor dance at the Sangeet Night. However, there was also room for Parle Patel to ad-lib and add extra humour, slipping in a line about the parking being OK because it was Easter.
After the show, the cast were outside in the lobby happily posing for photos with audience members. The atmosphere was full of energy and faces covered with smiles. It certainly seemed that the mix of music, dance, and comedy had thoroughly entertained everyone. At this point of the tour there are just dates left for Leicester and Birmingham (details below), but I would recommend catching the show while you can and you may need to hurry, tickets are selling fast.
Remaining tour dates & venues:
5 May The Haymarket Theatre, Leicester – 2.30pm & 7.30pm
6 May The Haymarket Theatre, Leicester – 1.30pm & 6.30pm
27 May The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham – 4.00pm
Buy tickets:
www.mkdw.co.uk
Facebook:
@MrsKapoorsDaughtersWedding
Instagram:
@MrsKapoorsDaughtersWedding
YouTube:
www.youtube.com/channel/UClYVIhHj1BTuApGYb9oV8bQ
Jonathan has a varied history, having written for publications such as Asian Woman but also technical magazines such as Networking+. He also has a background in IT so he's been instrumental in the technical side of getting Global Indian Stories launched. As co-founder, he also keeps writing, sub-editing, and handling the social media.
