More bhangra for our buck please
Bhangra Nation (Birmingham Rep) Verdict: Not strictly Bhangra ★★★✩✩
THE whole of Birmingham should be jumping to a bhangra beat. If it’s not, it’s because the Rep’s sweet and goodnatured new American musical is tilted towards a younger audience. You could even call it High School (Bhangra) Musical, as it’s based on a dispute between rival Indian traditions in an inter-state collegiate dancing competition.
Mary, the mixed-race student, wants to include other dance music, including classical kathak and hip hop. Her friend Preeti is an Indian stickler, who insists on the purity of Punjabi tradition.
To its credit, the musical, which premiered in San Diego in 2022, is an interesting exercise in tribally specific anti-tribalism. It’s about dissolving differences, not defending them. But the producers would have pulled a much bigger crowd with less yack and more dhol drumming.
They also go overboard on musical diversity. As well as bhangra, Sam Willmott’s selection includes jazz, rap, oldschool Bollywood, a mainstream teen torch song duet and some cowboyish ukulele strumming. There’s even a Sondheim-esque number sung by Rekha, a middle-aged Indian dance expert and restaurateur.
She, incidentally, saves the day by cutting short a debate on who’s more Indian by scoffing: ‘This is the most American conversation I’ve ever heard!’
Rujuta Vaidya’s choreography pulls in just as many different directions, from Busby to (of course) Bollywood in Stafford Arima’s sparky production. But both owe a big debt to leading lady Jena Pandya as Mary. She is a remarkable talent who glides, pops and spins through a sub-continent of moves, as well as chirruping a song book of styles. A star is born.
Nor can you help but warm to Ivan Fernandez Gonzalez (above left, with Pandya) as her cute Latino squeeze; or Siobhan Athwal as her hard-ass roommate, who’s made a papier-mâché uterus out of pages from the Kama Sutra.
But what would really bring us all together is more of that ‘bhanging’ bhangra spectacle.