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Sounds, music radio podcasts.

1:23

Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me,

1:25

the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history

1:27

seriously. My name's Greg Jenner. I'm a public

1:29

historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are

1:31

buying our tickets, popping our popcorn and settling

1:33

into our cinema seats to learn all about

1:35

the history of Bollywood. And to

1:37

help us, we have two very special guest stars. In

1:40

History Corner, she's an academic and the

1:42

author of both nonfiction and fiction books,

1:44

including the novel Hotel Arcadia. She's

1:47

professor of creative writing and inclusion in

1:49

the arts at London Metropolitan University in

1:51

London. And luckily for us, she's also got

1:53

a fantastic new book out all about Indian cinema.

1:56

It's called A Bollywood Slate of Mind and our guest

1:58

is Professor Sunny Singh. Hello,

2:00

good to be here and thank you

2:02

for having me. My pleasure. And

2:05

in comedy corner, she's a broadcaster, BAFTA

2:07

nominated documentary director and award winning podcaster.

2:09

You might have seen one of her

2:11

TV documentaries, including rescuing ex-Muslims and queens

2:13

of rap, or listen to

2:15

her BBC Asian network show, Group Chat. And

2:18

you'll definitely know her from co-hosting the fantastic

2:20

and funny Brown Girls Do It Too, which

2:23

is about love and sex and dating and heartbreak and friendship

2:25

and all the good stuff. And it had a fantastic stage

2:27

show spin-off. Mama told me not to come. So who is

2:29

it? It's none other than Poppy J. Welcome to the show

2:31

Poppy. I've got to steal that bio. What an

2:34

intro. My God. Hi. Thank you so much

2:36

for having me. I would like to have you here. Poppy,

2:39

first time on the show. Yeah. I'm

2:41

a big fan of your podcast, but I want to know, do you

2:43

like history? Is this out of your comfort bay?

2:45

I love history. A few. And

2:48

one of my biggest regrets is, I wish I'd done history

2:50

at A level and I wish I'd picked

2:52

history as my degree, because the one

2:54

thing that put me off is, I learned

2:56

so much about the Second World War. And

3:00

I wanted to know more about the empire and colonialism,

3:02

and I was far more interested in the American Civil

3:04

War. So that put me off because I thought, it's

3:06

going to be another two years of Winston Churchill chatting

3:09

breeze. So I was like, allow that. So that was my

3:12

biggest regret. So I'm so happy to be in this room,

3:14

and I'm going to be learning and listening and probably being

3:16

a bit of a clown. And hopefully this

3:18

is a no-brainer. Are you familiar with Bollywood? Bumpasai. Of

3:22

course I have 90s Bollywood though, Professor Sunny Sink. 90s

3:25

Bollywood is the best Bollywood. I'm just putting it

3:27

out there. Everyone has their favorite.

3:29

What would be your classic 90s Bollywood movie that

3:33

you would use to introduce someone to the genre?

3:36

Oh God, that is such a good question. And

3:39

unfortunately for me, I don't know the names of any of them.

3:41

The files are so long. Kabi

3:43

Kabi Kushi Kabi Kam is a bit of a

3:45

classic, isn't it? Kabi Kushi Kabi Kam is a

3:47

classic. It's also something quite funny because the tagline

3:49

goes, it's all about loving your parents. So it's

3:51

quite funny because it's also part of my book

3:53

because the book's dedicated to my mum. Awwww.

3:57

There we go. What's the one with the Hindi

3:59

laga? Get it? No, that's my all day.

4:01

DDLJ. OK. Basically, you

4:03

come over to our summer party, you get

4:05

D.D. It'll be like a Lord of the

4:07

Rings trilogy like DDLJ. Come

4:09

because you can't be coming in. So I put you on there. Could

4:11

you shot that head? Done. There we go. There you go. That's

4:14

that's about a week and a half of your life. So

4:17

what do you know? Well,

4:23

that brings us to the first section of the podcast. So

4:25

what do you know? This is where I have

4:28

to go at guessing what you are. A lovely

4:30

listener might know about today's subject. And Bollywood is

4:32

the world's most popularly watched cinema. It is the

4:34

biggest film industry on the planet. Yeah, I think

4:36

it's fair to say Indian films are not as

4:38

well known in Europe or North America. Film

4:41

buffs may know the work of mid-century

4:43

director Satajit Ray, I think is often

4:45

critically hailed. But there's not a huge

4:47

amount of name recognition on some of

4:49

the other great filmmakers and actors. Although

4:51

in 2022, the Bollywood spectacular RRR made

4:55

a global smash. Won an Oscar, Golden

4:57

Globe, two Critic Choice Awards. It went

4:59

viral on Twitter because it's incredible stunts.

5:01

And yes, some Bollywood stars are

5:03

now Hollywood famous too, like Priyanka Chopra, Jonas,

5:05

who as well as being one of the

5:07

highest paid actresses in India is also the

5:10

wife of pop star Nick Jonas. But

5:12

what about the historical origins of Bollywood? How

5:14

is it tied up with the history of

5:17

modern India? And what exactly

5:19

is an item number? Let's find out.

5:22

OK, so why is it called Bollywood? And is that a

5:25

useful title for this episode? I

5:27

think we need a bit more nuanced thinking.

5:29

So it's a useful term for this episode

5:31

because it's a kind of catch all name

5:33

that is also really familiar in the West.

5:36

But it is a name that is given

5:38

to respectively. And it implies

5:40

that Indian cinema is a kind of

5:42

knockoff, cheap version of American cinema. OK.

5:45

So I don't use it in

5:47

India or even places like Jordan

5:49

or Malaysia or Russia where Indian

5:51

cinema is already very popular. So

5:54

Indian cinema is a useful umbrella

5:56

term. But India makes movies

5:58

in 17 languages. Wow. And

6:00

so what we call Bollywood is Bombay cinema

6:02

because that's where the films are made. And

6:06

Hindi cinema is also an option,

6:09

although many filmmakers speak other languages as

6:11

well, even though they work in

6:13

Hindi. So actually, RRR

6:15

that you mentioned, in the introduction,

6:18

is a Telugu language from. It's

6:21

not really Bollywood. Sometimes

6:23

we also use Masala movies, which

6:26

is kind of more about the structure. It

6:28

means spices and applies to all kinds of

6:30

films that are suitable for every kind of

6:32

occasion. So the three films we mentioned earlier,

6:34

those kind of work. Those are Masala movies.

6:36

Yeah, they're not proper Masala. But yeah, I've

6:38

never heard of Masala movies. I'm going to use

6:40

that now. It's great. So Bollywood, I mean, it's

6:42

the title of your book. So obviously it's the

6:45

moniker we all kind of know. But it's

6:47

not hugely useful. And Bombay now is

6:49

known as Mumbai. But Bombay

6:52

is where the B comes from and the

6:54

Bollywood. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, so

6:56

we'll keep saying Bollywood for now, but I'm going

6:58

to put big old air quotes next to it.

7:00

Every time you hear me say it, listener, big

7:02

air quotes on the Bollywood. And we're talking about

7:04

a 20th century art form, cinema 1896, that usually

7:06

mention the camera, but it's a 20th century art

7:08

form. Funny, you want to start the

7:10

subject in the second century BCE, 2200

7:12

years ago, what? Hang on. Yeah,

7:16

because we've been doing this stuff for

7:18

a while. So to really understand these

7:21

films, we have to actually

7:23

start with the history of theater in

7:25

India, and the principles and theories of

7:27

performance and drama. And these

7:29

are laid out in something called the

7:31

Natyashastra. And that's a Sanskrit text. And

7:33

it's written in verse and it's from

7:36

second century BCE. And it has 6000

7:38

verses, which

7:40

explain the principles of every

7:42

aspect of theater, performance, production.

7:45

And it gives an

7:47

overview as well of regional theater

7:49

conventions, which map nicely across much

7:51

of modern South Asia, and

7:54

recognizes variations in style and languages

7:56

across the region. The

7:58

Natyashastra also talks about drama

8:01

as a cultural form that

8:03

is accessible not only to the elite

8:05

but all levels of society. And

8:07

it's been the text that is sort

8:10

of the foundation for all performance and

8:12

art and thinking about all

8:14

of these in India for that long.

8:16

That's amazing. Have you heard of the Natya Shastra

8:18

before? Absolutely not. Not

8:21

until five seconds ago. Writing

8:24

it down. How do you say it?

8:26

Natya Shastra. Natya Shastra. 6,000 buses in

8:28

it. It's not a brief

8:30

little pamphlet. No, it's definitely when you

8:32

compare it to Poetics which is what 36 pages.

8:35

They love a manuscript don't they?

8:38

You've got the Nattya Shastra. We

8:40

like putting stuff down. And

8:42

then we like arguing about it. Yeah. All

8:46

those aunties and uncles on the living room table

8:48

being like, I tell you it's like this. What

8:51

are the key elements? Let me start with

8:53

some of the concept of rasa

8:56

actually. Which is really important. And

8:58

it translates roughly to juicer essence.

9:01

And rasa is the cumulative result

9:03

of all elements of performance. So

9:05

staged, light, actors,

9:08

acting, costume, everything.

9:10

But it's combined with the audience's reaction

9:13

to it. The Natya Shastra also talks

9:15

about how to structure a place, themes.

9:18

So for example separation and reunion

9:20

are really common. This

9:22

space is for dream space, set

9:24

plots. This emphasis is also

9:26

on the role of spectacle. We'll come back to

9:28

that with item girl numbers or

9:30

item numbers. Also how to

9:32

use visual metaphor. You know, whole range

9:35

of things. It's useful

9:37

to know that there are four positive

9:39

rasas and four negative rasas. So

9:42

the four positive ones, ashrungar which

9:44

is love, hasyar which is humor, vir

9:47

which is heroism and courage, adhvut

9:49

that is wonder. And the four negative

9:51

ones, karuna which is

9:53

sorrow, rodr which is wrath, Bhayana

9:56

which is terror and Bhivat

9:58

which is disgust. The. Number how

10:00

that movie or the muscles performance yeah

10:03

will balance each of these out. You

10:05

can just throw everything. an addict can't

10:07

be just one thing. The perfect balance

10:10

is the perfect performance. Okay, and this

10:12

is also why. Not. Just

10:14

Bollywood, but many Indians phones

10:16

don't need li fit into

10:18

the western shoulder categorization. Puppy

10:20

when you are writing your state show with for being

10:22

a mom with helping of the com which of the

10:25

ruff as a using most I mean if we were

10:27

a pie chart of russes it would probably be mostly

10:29

comedy and. Humor, but there's a massive

10:31

did change towards the end of.

10:33

The show cause love not gives you much

10:36

I was sorrow and and heartache. And

10:38

pain that saw the solemn X

10:40

Men as like. A tasty. This

10:42

process witnessing forward now from ancient India

10:44

to the nineteenth century and we got

10:47

plays happening and puppy will kind of

10:49

place you think these are would you

10:51

guess is either Knowing. Indians and

10:53

Asians. Generally South Asians I

10:55

imagine they're about on a

10:58

reputation and to the your

11:00

family happy as into and

11:02

and love Love Love Story

11:04

Delhi We love love. This

11:06

is an instant period in history has always existed

11:08

during the British Raj with the British in a

11:10

controlled Us of South Asia. So what sort of

11:13

play the happening? Who's in them? What are they

11:15

about? So. What's really interesting is

11:17

about mid Nineteenth century, there's

11:19

the rise of what we

11:21

can call modern theater, And

11:23

this is because student communities

11:25

in places like Bombay are

11:27

creating their own productions, and

11:29

these often use Western theatrical

11:31

forms which are actually have

11:33

been brought in by the

11:35

British population in India. Alone

11:38

because they're missing so other

11:40

Shakespeare goods. You're like. There's

11:43

lots of see it are happening in many

11:45

languages and many forms, but this is something

11:47

new. With. The students start

11:49

creating and so it uses

11:51

for the first time the

11:53

Presidium stage for example okay

11:55

since importance but at this

11:57

point Western plays for example

11:59

Shakespeare. are huge, but you wouldn't

12:01

recognize them as Shakespeare because

12:03

they're translated and they're rewritten to

12:05

have much more relevance and appeal

12:07

to the local audience. So

12:10

Verona means nothing, but

12:13

that does mean something. So

12:15

characters are renamed, they're given

12:17

cost and community identities, they're

12:20

given more familiar cultural motivations,

12:23

songs and dance and narrative structures

12:25

are changed to explain this. It's

12:28

still kind of Shakespeare, but it's

12:30

not Shakespeare. We're rounded up.

12:34

This modern theater also pulls together

12:37

scripts and ideas and stories from

12:39

Persian and Sanskrit theater. A lot

12:41

of it is financed by Parsi

12:43

entrepreneurs. These are a very

12:45

small minority in India. They're

12:47

descendants of Persian immigrants

12:49

who practice Zoroastrianism. And

12:52

these plays are written for large

12:54

parts by Zoroastrians, but also Muslims

12:56

and Christians. And in general, it becomes

12:58

known as Parsi theater. And this is

13:00

the forerunner of Indian cinema. It's

13:04

performed by actors of many

13:06

religious, linguistic, ethnic backgrounds, but

13:09

it's aimed actually at a largely Hindu

13:11

audience. And I think that's really the

13:13

interesting part because that's the root of

13:16

Bombay cinema. So in 1895, Poppy,

13:18

along comes France's famous Lumiere brothers, and

13:20

they invent the camera, the film camera

13:22

and projection technology. So that's the birth

13:24

of cinema 1895. How quickly do

13:27

you think it ends up in India, from Paris 1895

13:29

to India, Mumbai?

13:32

Oh, god, it's 7000 kilometers away. I'm

13:35

going to hazard a guess and say 2024 1924,

13:37

you think or are you

13:40

saying 24? No, 1924 from 1895. So you think you think like

13:46

30 years? Yeah. Six

13:49

months. Yeah, well, terrible guess. That is quick.

13:51

I mean, the

13:53

moment they invent

13:56

the camera, they pop it on a ship and off it goes. I

13:58

think it's really great because Lumiere brothers

14:00

in Paris present the

14:02

film camera at

14:04

a room that's called the India Room.

14:06

Sounds everything. Yeah, it does. Yeah. So

14:09

it's in Mumbai in 1896. So initially these are short films. These are

14:11

like really, really short. Kind of what

14:13

you see on TikTok these days. Yeah, yeah. Like silent

14:15

TikToks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

14:18

yeah. You just got the captions. You're in the toilet and you're

14:20

like, oh, well done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Greg, one quick thing.

14:22

BFI is a very, very, very important thing. It's a very important

14:24

thing. It's a very important thing. It's a very important thing. I

14:30

have spent a lot of these on YouTube, so look

14:32

them up. Yes. Okay. Yeah,

14:35

you're right. Yeah, there's amazing stuff in the 1890s on YouTube from Asia and

14:37

from Europe. So how long are they typically? These are

14:39

short. I mean, they're often 40, 50 seconds long.

14:41

Oh, they really are. They really are. Really, really.

14:43

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But

14:45

they're good. So funny that we've done like a full

14:48

circle back to, yeah. Okay. The first

14:50

feature film, 1913 in India. It's

14:52

really early. It is. And film

14:55

making just zooms through

14:57

the land in such fast ways

15:00

people are immediately love watching this

15:02

marvelous new thing. The

15:04

first feature lens silent film is Raja

15:06

Harish Chandra. Okay. It

15:08

begins development in 1911 and it's released in 1913.

15:12

Wow. It takes two years to

15:14

make the first film. I mean, that's impressive, right? You

15:16

have to learn how to make it. But

15:19

it's directed by Dada Sabfalke, who was a

15:21

photographer. And it's actually based on a very

15:24

popular play from 1875. And

15:27

the plot centers on an exiled king

15:30

who experiences poverty and the death

15:32

of his son. And then his wife

15:34

is falsely accused of murder and

15:37

he is ordered to execute her. God.

15:40

Yeah, I know. It gets really heavy stuff. Yeah,

15:42

it's heavy stuff, isn't it? Yeah. And

15:44

they're saved by the deity Shiva who shows

15:46

up and restores justice and the kingdom and

15:48

resuscitates his son. And it

15:50

was hugely convenient. Yeah. It

15:52

was hugely successful to the point they

15:54

had to create more new prints

15:57

for it. Okay. Yeah.

16:02

even as the first feature film can

16:04

be considered a multilingual film because

16:06

it had intertitles. Yeah, because it's a silent film

16:08

but it's a multilingual silent film. Exactly.

16:10

So the intertitles, which is the

16:13

onscreen text which would show up in the

16:15

quote unquote dialogues, were in

16:17

English, Marathi and Hindi. And

16:20

Falke had actually traveled to Britain

16:22

to learn filmmaking and had imported

16:24

equipment from Europe in order to

16:26

make the film. That's why it

16:28

took two years. So, Poppy, Falke

16:31

spent time in London learning filmmaking,

16:33

a modern filmmaking degree, usually three

16:35

years, give or take. How

16:37

long do you think he had to learn filmmaking

16:39

in London? Before he made this film

16:41

that took two years. Yeah. Well, if it took six

16:43

months to get the camera from ship from Paris to India, I

16:46

want to say something ridiculous like a day,

16:48

not a day, obviously. I don't know, months?

16:51

Yeah, two weeks. Okay. Yeah.

16:53

Good instinct. Yeah. I can't learn anything.

16:55

What could you master in two weeks? I

17:00

mean, nothing. I mean, during COVID I

17:02

learned nothing. People were learning languages, learning to

17:04

knit, learning an instrument. I was like, I've learned how

17:06

to eat more. So Falke, he's learned

17:10

some techniques in London. He returned

17:12

home. He invents the feature film in the

17:15

Stemification Market. It's called Araja Harishchandra. Is

17:17

that right? Yeah. And the God Shiva

17:19

comes out and sort of deus ex

17:21

machina. It's good sort of special effects,

17:23

by the way. Right. And that's the

17:26

other thing, right? Already film is doing

17:28

trickery and fun stuff, which is cool. And there

17:30

is a sort of back and forth between theater

17:32

and film. It's not like a new genre, a

17:34

new art film has been invented film and everyone

17:36

goes, right, that's it. Ditch the theater. We don't

17:38

need it anymore. There is a sort of constant

17:40

dialogue that they're informing each other. Yes. So many

17:44

directors, writers, actors begin

17:46

to work in film and some

17:48

of them actually still continue to work

17:51

in theater as well. And of

17:53

course, as Falke had done, many of

17:55

the early filmmakers find ready-made

17:58

scripts and popular. scripts

18:01

in the Parsi theatre. Interestingly, as

18:03

Parsi theatre, you would use a

18:05

mixture of languages. Filmmakers

18:08

also continued this approach. So the

18:10

intertitles on silent films would

18:13

be in multiple languages, as would be

18:15

dialogue once sound was

18:18

introduced. This also leads

18:20

to the emergence of Filmi Hindasani. Hindasani

18:22

itself is a combination of Hindi and

18:24

Urdu, popularly spoken. But

18:28

this Filmi Hindasani drew

18:30

on vocabulary from various

18:32

languages, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali.

18:35

And Filmi Hindasani then becomes a

18:37

kind of lingua franca through

18:40

Indian cinema. It's really interesting that

18:42

you touch on that actually, because

18:44

I'm Bangladeshi and I understood Hindi

18:46

from watching Bollywood films. Really interesting

18:48

to hear that the multilingual element

18:50

is so fundamental to film so

18:53

early on. You know, we're in 1913 here,

18:55

we're talking about it. To be fair, it

18:57

also goes back to thousand years ago, because the

18:59

nazi shastra is very clear. You should just

19:01

let people speak whatever. Right. And

19:04

it also means Greek characters. Greek

19:06

characters could show up in a

19:08

classical play and speak Greek. Amazing.

19:10

And that would be acceptable. You can't do that in

19:12

Hollywood now, can you? Okay, so you mentioned sound coming

19:15

in. So in Hollywood, that's the jazz singer. This is

19:17

the first sound motion picture in 1927. And

19:20

I'm guessing the Indian cinema, given

19:22

that it took six months for the camera to show up,

19:24

presumably they're sort of straight on it. Yeah, we'll have that, please.

19:27

Thank you very much. So how quick are we talking? We're

19:29

talking really quickly. Any technology that comes

19:31

up goes immediately to Indian cinema. We

19:33

love it. So yes,

19:35

the arrival of sound is very,

19:37

very quick. And the first Indian

19:39

film that sound was Alomara.

19:42

It means light of the world. And it comes

19:44

out in 1931. But

19:46

here is the singing in the rain moment. Not

19:49

all silent movie actors were suitable for

19:51

talkies. The silent film

19:53

superstar was Sulojna, a female

19:56

actress. And she was from

19:58

India's Iraqi Jewish community. Yeah,

20:00

was she called Ruby Myers? Yes, Ruby

20:02

Myers was her name. And

20:04

she did not speak in Dasani, which was

20:07

not a problem in Salantira, and could not

20:09

be cast in Alhamara. So

20:11

guess what, she takes a year off

20:13

to learn the language, and then comes

20:15

back to the talkies in 1932. Wow.

20:18

And becomes becomes another star now for

20:20

the talkies, a superstar. Two things happen,

20:23

the introduction of sound also means Alhamara

20:25

included songs, seven songs,

20:28

immediately. Oh, we love a number. We

20:30

love a number, don't we? Okay, now we're talking

20:32

or now we're singing rather. Yeah. Yeah. And

20:35

of course, that's also the start

20:37

of all the other cinema industries

20:39

in India, because films can now

20:41

be splintered along linguistic lines and

20:43

kind of be made in multiple

20:45

languages. Okay. It's no longer

20:47

just focused in one city. Yeah,

20:49

that's fascinating. So okay, we're

20:51

singing. We're singing now. We're ready. We're here.

20:54

I'm not going to stop singing. Never. I

20:56

mean, can you imagine a Bollywood film without

20:58

song and dance? Because it's so intrinsic, isn't

21:01

it? Are there any Bollywood films without any

21:03

song and dance numbers? I'm sure there must

21:05

be. I don't know. In the last 120 years,

21:10

I have, I think,

21:12

identified about that. experimental.

21:15

Yeah, they're very, they're

21:17

very experimental. Yeah,

21:19

it must be really hard. Well, to

21:21

be fair, they are the art house

21:24

cinema, which is but, but commercial cinema.

21:26

I don't think no, no, no, no.

21:28

Yeah. So everybody would film from the

21:30

films that I've watched. It's basically a

21:32

musical, effectively.

21:35

We're so informed by Bollywood. It's in our

21:37

DNA. It's kind of we grew up, it's

21:40

formed such a big part of identity. We talk

21:42

about it in the podcast, we give homage to

21:44

it in the show. And I've not seen any

21:46

films without any at least eight musical. And it's

21:48

such a such a part of the culture as

21:50

well. Because I remember these cassette tapes. What's

21:52

that? That company's called tips? TPS?

21:55

Yes, tips. Also T series. They're

21:57

everywhere. T series. Yes. Mad,

22:00

mad. And I would be our

22:02

equivalent of people swapping records. Right.

22:06

Like, my uncles would go to the shop,

22:08

get these cassette tapes, and we'd all be

22:10

listening by the hi-fi or the stereo to

22:12

like the latest tracks. It was so

22:14

magical. I mean, now everything's all digital and stuff.

22:16

No, I like that. The

22:19

analog swapping of stuff. The analog, yeah, yeah. You swap

22:21

tapes with the, you know, the uncle from number

22:23

54 and you take yours and you take his

22:25

and... And there's so many different types of songs, there's

22:28

so many sort of genres. I mean, I know producer

22:30

Emmy and her mum, Namrita, are suckers for a big

22:32

romantic number sung on top of the Swiss mountains, which

22:34

apparently is a sort of real thing in Bollywood now.

22:37

Like a lot of stuff gets filmed on mountains. Oh, the Swiss mountain jokes. Yeah,

22:39

yeah. Like the Swiss mountain jokes, yeah.

22:41

Yeah, it must be quite chilly up there. It is,

22:43

it is. But there is a logical reason

22:46

for it because starting about late 80s,

22:48

because of the political issues in

22:50

Kashmir, it became impossible to film

22:53

there. And there's the whole

22:55

mountains as a romantic space for love.

22:57

It's a very long standing trope. Swiss

23:00

mountains became the stand in. The hills are

23:02

alive with the sound of Bangra. I don't know.

23:05

It works, right? It's a beautiful thing,

23:07

but also I guess it's an

23:10

exotic location. But I mean... It

23:12

is chilly. And if you think that's chilly, you

23:14

haven't seen the song shot in Antarctica. You

23:16

can see the actresses lips turned

23:18

blue. Oh, it was. It did a musical

23:21

number in Antarctica. Wow. That's hardcore.

23:23

I mean, so we've identified really that there's

23:25

no such thing. Well, you said there are

23:27

10 movies without music. So my

23:29

favorite movie is Singing in the Rain, which is

23:31

a musical, an MGM musical. But there's no such

23:34

thing as a musical in Bollywood. It

23:36

is. It just is. It just is.

23:38

Exactly. There is no distinction between

23:41

sort of films and musicals as separate categories. And

23:43

song and dance are essential. Films

23:46

can't even, I think, operate effectively without

23:48

them in many cases. Sometimes

23:50

up to 25% of a film

23:53

budget can depend on the sale

23:55

of the music rights. From the

23:57

30s, that means soundtracks have become

23:59

a... and resource of income for

24:01

films. Interesting. And songs are

24:04

also used to promote films ahead of

24:06

their release. Plus, also

24:08

going back to the Nazi Shastre, song

24:11

and dances serve specific narrative,

24:13

visual, emotional purposes within the

24:15

film. They can introduce the

24:17

main star, they can enable

24:20

character exposition, they reveal key

24:22

themes as the narrative

24:24

unfolds, they establish mood and

24:26

anticipation, they allow for debate

24:28

and moral dilemmas, they make

24:30

political statements. Songs do a

24:32

lot of stuff. And they provide

24:35

levity and emotional relief for the audience. And

24:37

I think going back to the item song,

24:39

the Glamorous Spectacle, which is often a

24:41

song that can feature an actress or

24:43

a star who's not actually in the

24:45

rest of the movie, but

24:47

comes in to do a really cool glamour

24:50

appearance. A cameo appearance. Yeah. But

24:52

it's not just a cameo. The job is to show

24:54

up and just look fabulous and

24:57

do a number which is glorious and everybody will

24:59

dance to and it will continue to be

25:01

a huge hit forever. And

25:04

that's the role. There's a film from

25:06

1932 called Indra Saba, which translates into The

25:08

Court of the Gods. Poppy,

25:10

how many songs were in it, do you think? Given

25:12

that the first Bollywood songs had seven songs, how many

25:14

by 1932 are in this film? I'm

25:17

going to double and say 14. It's a

25:19

very sensible guess. 71 songs. My

25:24

God. It's insane. At what point?

25:27

How long was the film? Four hours. At

25:31

what point does that song just turn into one big song?

25:33

I mean, I don't think I know 71 songs. You

25:35

know, it's really interesting because also like the

25:38

way Asian people watch cinema and watch plays.

25:40

So when we did our show, I totally

25:42

forgot, we actually did a, we

25:44

had a dance routine to a very famous

25:46

song, I'm sure Sunny will know, called Dola

25:48

Redola from Devdas. You need

25:51

music to give you pause and music

25:53

is great because it informs

25:56

the culture, the fashion, but

25:58

after a while, it just kind of

26:00

blends into one. And the way

26:02

we watch films as well, I remember we told

26:05

Soho Theatre staff that Asian people will talk during

26:07

the show. We want them to talk. We want

26:09

them to discuss. They're not talking about what they're

26:11

having for dinner, so don't shush them. We don't

26:13

want anyone to be shushed. So we had late

26:16

comers galore and people were talking and whispering and

26:18

they were talking about what's happening on stage. I

26:20

remember Rubina saying when I'd never been to a

26:22

cinema in in Dira Bangadish, I'd love to go,

26:24

but she said when she went with her mum,

26:27

it was just like, I was like, how can

26:29

you stand four hours of cinema when

26:31

you're just constantly talking? And she's like, it just

26:33

turns into six hours. It's a day

26:35

out. So my

26:37

favorite, favorite movie ever is

26:40

not for the movie itself. It's Lagan. Lagan.

26:42

Oh my God. Yeah, I watched it

26:44

in Delhi and we went to the

26:47

American American and the cricket. Yeah, yeah.

26:49

Last half of the movie is a

26:51

cricket match. We got to the parking

26:53

lot. There were people with drums and

26:55

flags. I did not hear a word

26:57

that was. It was like being

27:01

in a stadium for the last half

27:03

of the film. You've got to love the way out. That's

27:05

amazing. That is amazing. It

27:08

was brilliant. It was the best film ever. That's a

27:10

proper experience.

27:13

Yeah, that is amazing. Funny, the practicalities

27:15

of filming these movies. If

27:18

you've got all these choreographed scenes,

27:20

dancing, singing, acting, four hours worth

27:22

of plot, are all the actors sort of

27:24

superstars you can sing, they can dance, they can act,

27:26

they can do stunts. Are they everyone's a triple threat

27:28

or what? Well, they

27:30

do have to dance. Okay. Although

27:32

sometimes body doubles are used for

27:34

dancing, often in very, very

27:36

famous sequences. But no,

27:38

thankfully, actors don't have to

27:41

sing. Since the 1940s, singing has

27:45

been dubbed by playback singers. And these

27:47

singers are actually often huge stars in

27:49

their own right. So people like Mohammed

27:51

Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, and they still

27:53

have decades later huge fan

27:56

followings. Lyrises and composers

27:58

are also highly valued. and

28:00

they often have their own star status. So

28:03

lyricists will have big

28:05

billing on all the material and

28:07

these have often actually been very

28:09

well respected poets who also

28:11

appreciate and understand the role of song

28:13

in a movie. So song

28:16

should not repeat what dialogue has already

28:18

said, it should enhance the

28:20

mood or emotion, how is it supposed

28:22

to phrase it, phrase these

28:24

ideas. So all of this is quite

28:26

literary in fact and I think that

28:28

is also quite different and quite unique.

28:30

I want to get back to the item numbers,

28:32

the item girls, because I find that really interesting,

28:34

because you said that these these they're always women,

28:36

is that right? You don't get item boys, item

28:39

champs? Most of the time it's

28:41

most of the times it's women

28:44

although some of the major stars including

28:47

Shah Rukh Khan who will talk about

28:49

it, has done his own take of

28:51

the item number, but so have all

28:54

the stars like Rishikpur. So there has

28:56

been a tradition but mostly it's women.

28:59

I have a question. Yeah, yeah.

29:01

What is an item number? These

29:03

are really incredibly staged,

29:06

spectacular numbers dating

29:09

back to the 40s and really

29:11

these are opportunities for filmmakers to

29:13

create a huge spectacle. So it's

29:15

a grand setting, often

29:17

a stage but not always, this

29:19

great upbeat music for the most

29:22

part. Sad songs or slow songs

29:24

don't make a good item number.

29:26

It's got to be sexy, it's

29:28

got to be fun. There's a

29:30

gorgeous actor, star, beautifully costumed, generally

29:32

often quite over-the-top costuming, so feathers

29:34

and sequins and you name it.

29:37

And over the time they've been used

29:39

to highlight in different

29:41

times the temptations of modernity,

29:43

to distinguish between characters who

29:45

are traditional and those

29:48

who are modern. That is another way of

29:50

showing the difference between the characters. There

29:53

also however, over the

29:55

decades, huge well-known beloved

29:57

stars like Helen who

30:00

We built an entire career decades long of

30:02

showing up in a film just

30:04

for a single musical number. It's

30:06

an amazing idea. Thinking about how I consume Bollywood.

30:09

I liken it to the cameo, but it serves

30:11

a completely separate purpose, like Sunny was saying. And

30:14

you often sometimes forget about the film and you

30:16

remember that song. Right. And you're humming

30:18

that song and you're with your cousins trying to

30:20

reenact moments from that song and you're trying to

30:22

follow the fashion, which is something I desperately tried

30:24

to do. But, you know, it's smart. Indian

30:26

is smart, man. I know what they're doing. I know

30:28

what they're doing. It is a money making enterprise.

30:30

It's cinema, but it's still money making. 25%

30:33

of the kind of budget of the film is made

30:35

by sales of these songs. So you

30:37

need to have a banger tune in the middle to

30:40

find the actual movie. They live on. They live

30:42

on. I remember in

30:44

Asian weddings, film a wedding

30:46

in the 90s, someone's wedding, which would

30:49

also go on for bloody hours, a day,

30:51

the actual video. And then you'd get rid

30:53

of all the sound and you'd just have

30:56

music. And then in a

30:58

little box, do you remember in a little box, you

31:00

could see the video of the song, the item number.

31:02

Right. So it'd be someone's wedding

31:04

and then in a small little screen, you

31:06

could see the video, the music video. At

31:08

your wedding video. On your wedding video. Amazing.

31:11

Yeah. I thought that's the copyright law allows

31:14

that. Well, honey. Very much. Hi,

31:18

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32:23

so we're into the 30s now. We're talking

32:26

about sound technology, but also there's another technology comes

32:28

in the 30s. And

32:31

that's a collaboration with German

32:33

filmmakers. So yeah, I think

32:35

that's a really interwar period collaboration.

32:37

It's a very fruitful relationship between

32:39

Indian and German film industries. It

32:42

does end with the outbreak of the

32:44

Second World War. We're back to Hitler

32:46

and Churchill again. Sorry, fudge sake. I'm

32:49

leaving. So

32:51

what happened is Britain expels or inters

32:54

any Germans who are operating in the

32:56

British colonies. So that obviously impacts anybody

32:58

who's working in Bombay and is German.

33:01

But before this, German directors have been

33:03

working in India. Indian

33:05

filmmakers train in Berlin. Wolfram

33:08

Haines leads the first

33:10

Indian cine color

33:13

laboratory. And that also

33:15

means 1933 sees the release of the

33:17

first Indian film in color, which

33:19

is Set Andri by V. Shantaram.

33:22

Although this is processed in Germany. But

33:24

very soon after in 1937

33:27

comes Kisan Kanyan, which is the peasant

33:30

girl. And that's the first film

33:32

in color that is produced entirely in India.

33:35

However, this is a little bit more

33:37

complicated because given the

33:39

fact that color technology had been developed

33:42

in the global north in white countries,

33:44

there was serious difficulty in rendering South

33:46

Asian skin tones on screen. So you

33:48

can see filmmakers struggle with

33:50

this constantly. And this really

33:52

gets fully resolved in the

33:55

1990s with the arrival of digital technology.

33:58

Right. So that kind of racial. structural

34:00

biases in the technology are there. I mean

34:02

and that sort of quite handily leads us

34:04

on to the British in India. Hello, me

34:06

again. Poppy, how

34:08

do you think British colonial authorities reacted to

34:11

this growing popularity of Indian cinema? What era

34:13

are we to? Where are we? Early 1900s,

34:15

sort of 1910s, 1920s. I

34:19

imagine they probably didn't like it, especially

34:22

if there was any descent or any

34:24

kind of Indian cinema that favored sort

34:26

of Indian nationalism or gave Indians

34:30

a sense of their identity. I want

34:33

to say because of the Brits' terrible

34:35

history, they probably just banned it or

34:37

did like they didn't like it or

34:39

if they did allow cinema it

34:41

was how fantastic the British were, you know,

34:45

helping us build railways, you know, and

34:47

you know, teaching us moral values etc. Good

34:50

instincts, Poppy. The British government not keen

34:52

pretty much as soon as there's film

34:55

there are censors, gentlemen

34:57

with mustaches saying, so can you

35:01

tell us about this kind of colonial censorship and

35:03

how does it apply to film? Well

35:06

I think it's important to recognize that

35:08

films were not just a new medium

35:10

but they were a very powerful one.

35:13

So they arrive in India at a time where

35:16

the country has 4% literacy

35:18

levels. Right. And

35:20

Falke, the director

35:22

of the first Indian feature film in 1913,

35:25

was inspired by the writer Rabindranath

35:27

Sagore who had said

35:30

earlier some years before that

35:32

cinema could be a really powerful political

35:34

tool for reaching the masses. But yes,

35:36

British colonial authorities tried to clamp down

35:39

on it very quickly. So

35:41

various regulatory acts are introduced by

35:43

the Imperial Legislative Council. That's a

35:45

bit far worse than.

35:49

In 1910 you get the press

35:51

act which limits the use of

35:53

literature as a means of disseminating

35:55

anti-colonial ideas. And of course

35:57

in 1918 the cinematogues

36:00

Act sets the

36:02

age restrictions and gives the right

36:05

to the government to suspend any film

36:07

which was quote, likely to

36:09

cause a breach of peace. This

36:12

also means that in 1937, for

36:14

example, you get Dunyan Amani, The World

36:16

Does Not Accept, which is

36:19

actually a film about forced

36:21

marriages and criticizes it. But

36:23

it also included documentary footage

36:25

of the anti-colonial leader, Vala

36:27

Paipatel. So the census

36:29

ordered at the footage be removed. But

36:31

there are clever ways around these rules, Poppy.

36:33

Filmmakers were finding ways to navigate the system.

36:36

Do you want to guess what they might

36:38

be? Maybe some sort of symbolic gesture either

36:40

through the music or

36:42

through traditions and values that are not

36:44

familiar with the Brits, something

36:46

only Indian society

36:50

would understand. These are good guesses, actually. I think

36:52

music is a good one. And I really like

36:54

the idea of a sort of Chipperless

36:56

type code. But, Sony,

36:58

how are people getting around the rules? No,

37:01

you're actually very right. So of

37:04

course, this is all happening in the context

37:06

of the growing independence movement. And

37:09

many films start to focus on

37:11

rebellion against unjust rulers

37:14

and organized action by the people. So

37:18

the 30s also, for example, see the

37:20

rise of these thrilling action movies

37:22

where the heroes defeat the

37:25

villains. And these are generally more

37:27

palatable to the censor so you can get them

37:29

passed because this political

37:31

material is more as

37:33

subtext. Filmmakers

37:36

also use songs to try sneaking in

37:38

political content. So soundtracks,

37:40

and then they come up with this

37:42

grand idea of having accompanying lyric booklets,

37:45

which then reach more audiences and more

37:48

people than films can on their own.

37:50

And these are also harder to control

37:52

and regulate. So

37:54

film music becomes the vehicle

37:56

to spread political messages. freshly

38:00

for films which were at particular risk of

38:02

being censored. Yeah, there you go. So

38:04

don't speak out against injustice. Sing out.

38:06

Sing out, yeah. Smart. Can we have

38:08

a musical section in Brown Girls

38:10

Do It Too maybe? I don't think

38:12

we need a musical section. We're just constantly speaking

38:15

out all the time. We probably need

38:17

a bit of censoring to be fair. We need a

38:19

bit of filtering. And our mouths need washing. It's

38:23

a real privilege, isn't it, to be able to say

38:25

what you want, to be able to protest. You

38:27

kind of take your civil liberties for granted, don't you?

38:29

So that's a very clever

38:31

way that they manage to

38:34

find creative ways to get their political messages

38:36

out. Especially in that time in the 30s,

38:38

right, when we get independence

38:40

in 1948, year seven. Yeah, I

38:42

think it's like it's on

38:44

the horizon, isn't it? Yeah. And there's

38:46

a lot of social change and there's

38:49

a lot of social reform and social

38:51

issues as well. Women's rights, farmer's

38:53

rights, land rights, these are all

38:55

in the mix. So yes, definitely

38:58

all of this has to be put across

39:00

to the people. And some of

39:02

it crosses over to, you know, to bother

39:04

the censors. And we've mentioned partition

39:06

there. So partition is done by the

39:08

British state in 1947. India,

39:11

as it's called, is split in two states, India

39:13

and Pakistan. And you get horrific

39:16

violence. Over a million people are killed. It's obviously

39:18

hugely traumatic. And so how does Bollywood respond

39:21

as an industry, but also in terms of

39:23

the themes it's putting in its films? I

39:25

think the first immediate reaction or

39:28

the impact is some very, very

39:30

prominent Muslims in the Indian film

39:32

industry, particularly in Mumbai, leave for

39:34

Pakistan at the point of partition.

39:37

Equally many Hindu filmmakers who are

39:39

in Lahore leave for India.

39:41

The Bengali film industry, which is

39:44

based around Calcutta and Dhaka, loses a

39:46

vast part of its audience overnight. The

39:48

partition is also reflected in the films

39:50

that are made. Very quickly,

39:53

for example, a trend shows up

39:55

about films that are focused

39:58

on families that are... separated

40:00

forcibly, often by

40:02

fate. And then the storyline is

40:05

about how they are brought together again. Which

40:07

was a theme in the Nadya Shastra, wasn't

40:09

it? That you said that was the separation

40:11

union logic. So it gets kind of gets

40:13

this new life. So you

40:15

get something like Wok, which is time

40:18

by Yash Chopra in 1965, in which

40:20

an actual earthquake divides the family. And

40:22

then they have to find each other

40:24

again. And a popular

40:26

sub-genre of this actually is around

40:28

identical twins who are separated at

40:31

birth. And that is often

40:33

played by one major star. So you get

40:35

Rama Sham, which is about the twins who

40:37

are Ram, who are shy and nervous, and

40:39

Sham, who's brave and are vain. And they're

40:42

both played by the legend, the Libkumar. And

40:44

these are some of the ways they

40:46

start to try and address the traumas.

40:48

That's a very, very interesting response to a huge

40:51

trauma in the 40s. But by the 60s and

40:53

70s, we're talking about the

40:55

Bollywood Golden Age, inverted commerce. Is there a

40:57

change away from that kind of hardcore political

40:59

element, and it's becoming a bit more glamorous

41:02

and glitzy? I think 60s see

41:04

increased budgets. They see

41:06

color films, which then become standards.

41:09

The politics is still there. The

41:11

wars that lead to the formation of Bangladesh,

41:14

unemployment, right to divorce, even

41:17

the restrictions on civil rights that are

41:19

imposed during the emergency, which is 1975

41:21

to 77, are reflected

41:23

by cinema. In the

41:26

70s, films also capture the

41:28

anger and frustration of India's

41:30

very first post-colonial generation. And

41:33

that's when you see the emergence of Amitabh Bachchan

41:35

as the, quote, angry young man

41:38

who plays these characters who single-handedly

41:40

take on corruption in economic and

41:42

political systems in the country. Interesting.

41:45

Poppy, if you were going to be typecast as

41:47

a type of role in a movie, what would

41:49

you love to be? I probably would be the

41:51

angry young woman. Fighting the system. Fighting the

41:54

system, fighting corruption, which I'm not

41:56

singling out India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, but you

41:58

know, corruption is rife. I

42:01

don't see myself playing the

42:03

main kind of love interest. It will be

42:05

someone with a purpose, someone who's fighting for

42:07

justice. That's kind of my role. Not doing the

42:10

item numbers. You're going to be doing the kind of

42:12

the moral critique. Well, no, I've got two films. So

42:14

in my main film, I'm the protagonist and I'm

42:16

the angry, angry young woman. And then in the

42:18

other film, I make a cameo as the big

42:20

important star in an item number. Good.

42:23

So I'm just like double-dipping. Good to have

42:25

range. Love it. I mean, yeah, I want

42:27

horrible histories. I always be background medieval peasant

42:29

covered in poop. That was my not

42:33

so much item girl. You know you downgrade yourself.

42:35

No, that's literally the role I played quite often.

42:39

So, yeah, not really item girl, more

42:41

sort of irritable bowel boy, really, sort of

42:43

guy who's just covered in species.

42:46

All right, let's get back to

42:48

some proper cinema. I mean, Sonny,

42:50

you've mentioned Amitabh Bachchan, who

42:52

is a star, like a

42:55

proper mega star. The

42:57

film industry is such a huge part of the

43:00

Indian film industry right now. You know,

43:02

the screaming, the love, the adoration is

43:04

enormous, way more so than for Hollywood

43:06

stars. When does that start? Very

43:09

early. And that's because early

43:11

film stars in India are also

43:13

already often theatre stars. So

43:16

they can pull in existing fans. And

43:19

even before film arrives, fans

43:21

would travel hundreds of miles to

43:23

see their favourite theatre stars, favourite

43:25

musicians and dancers. One

43:28

early star we talked about earlier,

43:30

Salochna, we've already mentioned, and she

43:32

was huge. There's another

43:34

wonderful, colourful character in the 30s

43:36

who was Fearless Nadia. And

43:39

she was a white Australian woman

43:41

named Marianne Evans, who

43:43

worked as a stunt woman and an actress

43:45

in many of the 1930s action films. She

43:49

actually has this amazing aura. And

43:52

there was also David Karani, who studied

43:54

actually at Rada and the Royal Academy

43:56

of Music. And that's where

43:58

she meets her husband, Himantu. Shurai.

44:01

Then they went home together via Berlin,

44:03

so worked there, and they set

44:06

up the Bombay Talkies Film Company

44:08

in 1934. And David Karani

44:10

was actually known often as the First

44:12

Lady of Indian Cinema. And she was

44:15

massive and continued to be massive. And

44:17

I think after independence as well, you

44:19

get this almost you get a bigger

44:21

proliferation of stars from the

44:23

50s onwards. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tovica Rani

44:25

is really fascinating. And Mary Ann Evans, you

44:27

know, very cool posters of her sort of

44:30

kicking ass with a full whip. You know,

44:32

she's like sort of Indiana Jones, but you

44:34

know, in the third quarter. Cooler than Indiana

44:36

Jones. Yeah, I mean, she's absolutely, you know,

44:38

okay, so Poppy, what would your fans call

44:40

you? What would be your body with nickname?

44:43

Oh, like, you know, when you get like, Angry

44:45

Spice or Hot Spice or Manager Spice.

44:47

I'm gonna stick within the rage section

44:50

to continue down that theme. And I

44:52

don't mind being type of ass and

44:54

pigeonholed. Justice Spice. Oh,

44:57

oh, I don't know. We let me come

44:59

back to you on that. But like something

45:01

around the revolution. Oh, yes, honey.

45:03

I'll take that. Yeah. You're gonna kick an ass

45:05

and yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing.

45:07

Mostly men's kicking men's asses.

45:10

Hey, you want fearless badia? Yeah.

45:13

Okay. Yeah. Feel as Poppy. Feel

45:15

as Poppy. Yeah. Modern reboot.

45:17

Yeah. Yes, that's kind of where I'd be. It's

45:19

nice. And what about the stars of the 60s and

45:22

70s, Sunny? There is Sartna, who

45:24

was huge and very popular and a

45:26

major fashion icon, which is what I

45:28

love about her. So she popularizes what's

45:30

called the Sartna cut, which has got

45:33

a short Audrey Hepburn like fringe way

45:36

before friends and Aniston

45:38

happened. And she also

45:40

introduces the modern, more

45:43

tight fitting versions of traditional female

45:45

fashion, especially the Shalvarkamese and in

45:47

this case, the Churya Garkamese. Right.

45:49

And she was so influential that

45:51

it won appearance in a

45:54

film. Her first appearance with that

45:57

changed fashion worn by young women

45:59

in India. right away.

46:01

And then there's this incredibly gorgeous,

46:03

very, very good looking male heartthrob

46:06

Darmendra. And he makes this

46:08

film, it's called Pular Patar, which is

46:10

Flower and Stone in 1966. And it

46:12

has this amazing scene where he takes

46:15

his shirt off, which was really big.

46:18

For years, that image that

46:20

still was reproduced of topless

46:23

Darmendra on postcards, on

46:25

calendars, on all the merges

46:27

you can imagine. And it's

46:29

extraordinary because that literally became what he

46:32

was known for. Swoon!

46:34

Yeah, so we've got

46:36

a topless heartthrob, and we've got, how

46:39

do I pronounce the name? Sadna?

46:42

Sadna. Okay. The fashion trendsetter. Yeah. And

46:45

I know you've written about Amitabh Bachchan himself, you know, the

46:47

angry young man who has become an

46:49

absolute icon. His breakthrough movie, if you

46:51

want to call it, is Anjir the Chain in

46:53

1973, which features him

46:56

as a young cop who is very

46:58

angry and looking for his parents' murderer.

47:02

And from that point, he dominates the

47:04

70s and the 80s. He's

47:07

often, he's called the angry young man

47:09

and he plays these roles of this

47:11

wronged child who grows up into a

47:14

man looking for justice. So

47:16

in the hugely successful Dawn, 1978,

47:19

he plays opposite Zeenat

47:22

Aman and plays a man who gets

47:24

employed by the police to impersonate a

47:26

murdered crime boss to bring down a

47:28

criminal gang. And there's

47:30

a whole spate of these. But what's really fascinating

47:32

is in 1982, while

47:35

filming a scene for the film Cooley,

47:37

in which his character

47:39

is a porter at a train station and

47:41

is meant to die at the end, he

47:44

had a near fatal injury to his

47:46

spleen and was incredibly ill for months

47:48

in hospital. And there was such a

47:51

huge, vast public response to it

47:53

with lines of well-wishers waiting outside

47:55

the hospital, prayers being offered

47:58

across the country in all ways. across

48:00

all religions, mosques, temples, everything.

48:04

There was such a huge emotional outpouring

48:06

that they rewrote the movie to make

48:08

sure that his character survived. That's

48:11

a lovely get well soon presence. We're

48:13

not going to kill you. Either that or it's avoiding a lawsuit.

48:15

I don't know how he got injured, but maybe there's a... You

48:17

know, he actually, they froze the moment

48:20

where he was actually injured

48:22

in the film. So you can actually, it

48:24

freezes and says, this is where he was

48:26

injured. Oh, wow. And then at the end,

48:28

he shows up on the balcony of the

48:30

hospital where he had recovered. Oh, wow. To

48:33

address this onscreen crowd and thank

48:36

his wonderful fans. Okay, so that's the

48:38

sort of, the star is in the movie

48:40

saying, I'm fine. Thank you. And thank you

48:43

for your while. Thank you for your follow.

48:45

I mean, that's incredible, Poppy. Yeah, that's kind

48:47

of mental, isn't it? Imagine if you

48:49

could do that on the Shawshank Redemption. Yeah.

48:51

We don't have the power to do that

48:53

in Holly. I don't think that that sort

48:55

of direct line that Bollywood fans have with

48:57

Indian cinema in the way that

48:59

they could change. You know, I'm not saying how I'm not

49:02

obviously an expert, but like the fact that that could happen.

49:04

Another major, major star would be Shahrukh

49:07

Khan, who is like... Heartthrob. I mean,

49:09

he's King Khan, right? He's known as

49:11

SRK King Khan. He's huge too. And

49:13

he's, you know, that's a whole other

49:16

sort of mega level of stardom, isn't it? It

49:18

is an absolutely mad level

49:20

of stardom. So Shahrukh Khan's

49:23

first success comes in early

49:25

90s, and he

49:27

starts with playing the anti-hero,

49:29

the slightly psychopathic, stalker-y lover.

49:31

Yeah. But in 1995, he

49:33

switches to a completely different persona, playing the

49:35

good son, the father, the brother, the

49:39

sort of the just ruler, if you want to call

49:41

it that way. He establishes in somewhat,

49:43

I think, possibly some of the biggest top-grossing

49:45

films of the 1990s, 2000s. There's

49:48

DDLJ, we talked about earlier, 1995, Delta

49:52

Pagala, 1997, Kush Kush Hota, Mahabharata...

49:56

He took a brief

49:58

break roundabout. 2017

50:01

and he's come back to the screens

50:03

in 2023 with action

50:05

blockbusters, baton and Javan. So,

50:07

King Khan is Muslim, a

50:10

fact that has become especially relevant with

50:12

the rise of Hindu nationalist politics. He

50:14

has spoken out against the growing intolerance for

50:17

Muslims in India. He's been told

50:19

to go to Pakistan by some BJP politicians

50:21

as a result. And worse, his

50:24

wife is Hindu and he's spoken very

50:26

openly about raising their children in a

50:29

multi-phase household. Also, in

50:31

2021, his eldest son, Aryan,

50:33

was arrested on drug charges.

50:35

And although he was later

50:38

cleared of these charges, to

50:40

be very clear, it has been alleged

50:42

that the officers were trying to blackmail the

50:44

family or potentially the charges

50:46

were politically motivated. He is incredible.

50:48

I mean, I knew he was

50:50

of a Muslim background. I actually

50:52

didn't know that he was speaking

50:55

out against the BJP's very

50:57

hyper-nationalistic sort of narratives. So I

50:59

have even more respect for him actually. His

51:02

essay inside the Khanate is extraordinary.

51:04

It's very, very... The Khanate. What's

51:06

the Khanate? The Khan, the Empire.

51:09

The Khanate, yes. Oh, clever. So,

51:11

yeah. And you get

51:13

into trouble when you speak out against

51:15

Modi. He did. And you get into

51:17

harassment and no one within

51:19

the industry comes to support you. It's

51:22

not like, you know, when Hollywood had

51:24

its Me Too moment, everyone

51:26

came out rallying and supporting

51:28

those actors. I don't feel

51:31

like it's like that as much. I think it's gone

51:33

back and forth. I think there was a great deal

51:35

of intimidation. I think when his son

51:37

was arrested, I think you saw a switch

51:39

happening as to who spoke and who didn't.

51:42

And a lot of people started to that point

51:44

of speak. I mean, very quickly, just to

51:47

sum up, but, you know, Bollywood is an enormous industry.

51:49

I can't explain how big it is. What is it

51:51

worth, actually, in terms of its billions? It's more

51:54

than Hollywood, isn't it? No.

51:56

I think the finance side is possibly the

51:58

only place where Hollywood... They have

52:00

got way bigger budgets. Okay. But

52:03

in terms of reach, it's 3.6 billion

52:05

people worldwide watch Bollywood movies. Okay,

52:07

1.4 are Indians. But,

52:09

come on, give us a shot. That

52:11

counts, right? But same reach. But half

52:14

the world's population, which is pretty big. And

52:16

yes, granted, a third of that is just

52:18

Indians. Same reach as Hollywood. I want to

52:20

ask, Poppy, growing up, was

52:23

Bollywood something that you had to explain to people? And

52:25

now, can you talk about these films with people and

52:27

they know what you're talking about? When I

52:29

was growing up, Bollywood, as

52:31

an experience, as a sort

52:33

of Indian cinema, it

52:35

was a very insular thing. You

52:37

shared it with your brown friends,

52:40

cousins, aunties, uncles, mum, dad. You

52:43

wouldn't tell your black friends or white

52:45

friends or non-Asian friends about Bollywood. But

52:48

certainly in the last 10, 15 years,

52:50

it needs no introduction. And also, you've

52:52

now, what I was seeing in

52:54

the early 2000s, the crossover, you know, Chopra,

52:57

Shah Rukh Khan is recognised worldwide

52:59

in terms of the hierarchy Hollywood was at

53:02

the top. But now, yeah, you need

53:04

no introduction. Everyone knows what Bollywood is. Yeah. It's

53:07

been quite the history. We went back 2,200 years. 2,000

53:09

years, yeah. So, yeah, it's been a while on the

53:11

old run-up. But yeah, it's amazing. The Nuance Window! Well,

53:13

it's time now for the Nuance Window. This

53:20

is the part of the show where Poppy

53:22

and I act like background extras for two

53:24

minutes, while Professor Sunny takes centre stage to

53:26

sing us something we need to know about

53:28

Bollywood. Well, talk if you want. That's fine.

53:31

My self-watch is ready. You have two minutes. So

53:33

please take it away, Professor Sunny. I think

53:35

two things. One, the Indian film

53:37

audience is extremely sophisticated

53:39

and has a very profound sense

53:42

of getting their money's worth, what

53:44

we call Pasavasool. So

53:46

that means an average of 700 commercial films

53:48

are made every year in India, and

53:50

only a few dozen are popular with

53:53

the audiences, and even fewer become box

53:55

office hits. But I think

53:57

one of the Things we need to really do is to make sure

53:59

that we have a very. Really remind ourselves about

54:01

that. They have been some really

54:03

great blockbusters in the past year.

54:06

These a very old school. And

54:08

in certain ways very modern in

54:11

many technology, special effects, but they

54:13

really have been claiming or reclaiming

54:15

the values of Bollywood. the multiplicity

54:18

of identities, the ability to get

54:20

along with neighbors inside and outside,

54:22

and of course all the different

54:24

bits of politics wed, linguistic, chauvinism,

54:27

gender class, all of these and

54:29

I think one of the best

54:31

ways to think about it is

54:33

the of On which is this

54:36

king com shot upon me. The.

54:38

Great stars, Huge number of

54:41

brilliant action sequences, lots of

54:43

great music, and it's also

54:45

explicitly political. It. Has

54:47

a strong longstreet to camera

54:49

monologue by it's main star

54:51

a king com himself by

54:53

the need for holding elected

54:55

leaders. To accounts. Thank you Sony as

54:58

soon as he poppy Any final thoughts

55:00

Blown Love some the still reeling from

55:02

asked to sunny see minute monologue this

55:04

is holding her family on. And

55:06

I think ending it on them

55:09

holding people to accounts and think

55:11

it's. Never. More truer

55:13

than what we're going through now, especially

55:16

in Indian. Cinema To hold someone who

55:18

can be brave enough to do it

55:20

is selling to. Be. Celebrated. So what are

55:22

you know? I'm

55:29

now for the quiz else and as a

55:31

somebody you know now where we could poppy

55:33

through the wringer. My see has my memory

55:36

of you have been making a million called

55:38

notes or you've got an essay. I. Scribble

55:41

things down and I don't. I can't

55:43

read my writings on stuff. Outside

55:46

account we got same question for you and

55:48

of yeah see how much suits humans to

55:50

read of your own notes so send questions

55:52

him again Christian One one of the name

55:54

of the ancient some script text that lays

55:57

out many principals of indie performance in six

55:59

thousand versus. The not three star.

56:01

That's right, A necessity? Yes, well

56:03

done. Question seems a more decade

56:06

did filmmaking a rise in India?

56:08

Eighty nine, Six percent, Three, Nineteen

56:10

Thirteen for the Release of Russia

56:12

Has sandra what was important, the

56:14

falsehoods. Of the first feature film

56:17

by does Self K, the director you're

56:19

getting directs. The names and everything through the

56:21

know taking his words were on really. Moron enough

56:23

away learning from this are. Some

56:25

from memory of four hours long.

56:27

How many songs when I loved

56:29

that ass off at every day?

56:31

See, that's the film In for

56:33

supper of seventy one songs specify

56:35

what fashion trends that Sixty Stars

56:37

soda or popularized the to either.

56:40

Yes, Question Six: What was an

56:42

item number in a Bollywood film?

56:44

Ah, an item number. Usually this big set

56:46

piece as as a song it's an easy

56:48

call into dance. Number is a big star.

56:50

unrelated to the story and plotline will often

56:53

make an appearance to drive sales. Absolutely

56:55

Question seven: How did filmmakers

56:57

sneak in political messages post

57:00

colonial era senses? Through the

57:02

music yes yes, who the song oh

57:04

and the printed and and lyrics books

57:06

Yeah, miracles to add. Books

57:08

Server good Question Eight which start

57:10

our fame in the nineteen seventies

57:13

playing an angry young man on

57:15

a budget office's Question Nine in

57:17

the nineteen thirties. Indian film like

57:19

is often collaborated with industry experts

57:21

from which European country. Germany

57:24

was tim the this for a

57:26

perfect ten. What nickname is Bollywood?

57:28

Hawthorne? Shah Rukh Khan? Known. By

57:30

can I get to guess is is

57:33

S R K. Is all kink

57:35

on? Set

57:37

out at Cern, He

57:41

really did what we do for the

57:44

ringer. you a stud? Ah, you're excellent

57:46

teacher Professor. That has reverted.

57:48

Fascinating think is what I learned lots as well.

57:50

I'm really very grateful for your knowledge. Sunny it's

57:52

it's been a joy and listener is Also today's

57:54

episode you are more about Indian history. With

57:57

on episodes on the Mughal Empire and

57:59

the Ain't. In Civilization. both of those

58:01

a really fun for more film history

58:03

mixed in politics. He got one on

58:05

pull ropes and much I loved doing

58:07

and remember if enjoyed the podcast. Please leave

58:09

review share the show your friends scribes.

58:11

you're dead to me on Bbc Sound

58:13

so you never miss an episode by Sled

58:16

to say he's thank you to our

58:18

guests in History corner we had the sensational

58:20

professor funny thing from London Metropolitan University.

58:22

Thank you Sunny Thing is great! Was

58:25

great fun and comedy corner! We had a

58:27

fantastic Poppy J Thank you Poppy! Thank you

58:29

So. Much for having me and listen to puppies

58:32

focused on Bbc Sounds is called Brown. Go through

58:34

it to It's very, very funny. Quite northeast but

58:36

you know, quite notice. Yeah, maybe not the kids

58:38

in the car. Let. It let me know if

58:40

kids and because I've tried to. the fact that

58:42

I've not been able to swear during this entire

58:44

hour energy. Level of America, Asia and yelling. And

58:48

you love the listener, join me next time if

58:50

we load another historical ethic into argued that to

58:52

me film projector. But for now I'm off to

58:54

the Swiss Alps, the serenade, my love of and

58:56

seventy one songs Oregon A sound card came in.

59:03

This episode of your that the Me with research

59:05

by Madeline breaks the could was written by enrolled

59:07

quite good fellow M indicates and made the or

59:09

the a producer for Steve Hanky and our production

59:11

coordinator with has been produced by any Rose has

59:13

good fellow to me and senior producer M and

59:15

a goose and are executive editor with Chris Let

59:17

off. On

59:31

this couture line from Bbc Radio

59:33

Four, leading artists and performers reveal

59:35

their creative inspiration. saw something that

59:37

was so beyond what I was

59:39

being taught school discuss the best

59:41

them work I. Do. Get messages all

59:43

the time saying this is our

59:46

lives. The handmade Tail is already

59:48

here. And reflect on their own

59:50

cultural lives. Rock stars need to

59:52

be simply drawn. I can't be

59:54

too complex to meet John Wilson

59:56

and my guests including Nick Cave,

59:58

Stephen Fry mobile. Howard Atwood, Florence Pugh,

1:00:01

Paul McCartney and Whoopi Goldberg. I always

1:00:03

knew I was going to be a

1:00:05

character actor. I never thought I was

1:00:07

going to be a famous movie person.

1:00:09

This Culture Alive. Listen on BBC Sounds.

1:00:16

Hi, I'm Danny Pellegrino from the

1:00:19

Everything Iconic podcast. And who doesn't

1:00:21

love a classic burger from McDonald's?

1:00:23

That's right, McDonald's classic burgers are

1:00:25

hotter, juicier and tastier than ever.

1:00:27

The patties are cooked to juicy

1:00:30

perfection. I love the cheese perfectly

1:00:32

melted on top. I love the

1:00:34

Big Mac that has special sauce

1:00:36

in every bite. I love the

1:00:38

pillowy soft golden bun. So in

1:00:41

the words of the hamburger, which

1:00:43

I believe means grab McDonald's best

1:00:45

burgers ever before hamburgers does at

1:00:47

a McDonald's near you.