London's Lyric Theatre, staging Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and A Funeral, a joint production by the Tamasha Theatre Company and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, is also not complaining. Parminder K Nagra is no Madhuri Dixit but playing Nisha on stage has its own advantages.

The small studio theatre was packed to capacity at the two-hour and 10 minutes show yesterday. Star guest actor Saeed Jaffrey -- staring grimly into his drink during the interval -- couldn't have been happier at the scenario. Most shows of the play -- which is on till December 5 -- are sold out already, in spite of Fourteen Songs being the first English language stage version of a Bollywood film.

Bollywood films have enthralled British Asians for over 20 years. Videos have given way tocinema screenings and Zee TV as the Asian community here has grown in size and prosperity. Mani Ratnam's Dil Se made cinema history earlier this year as the first Hindi film to enter the Top 10 box-office success in Britain.

But long before Bollywood films started to hit big time at the box office in Britain, stage versions of song and dance sequences from films were part of NRI entertainment. Hindi film stars were paid large premiums to perform in London and Leicester.

Director Kristine London Smith, who previously adapted the film for a radio audience, says it was natural to look to Bollywood for inspiration for a musical. ``Nobody obviously looks up to Bollywood for social enlightenment. They look for a feel good, family oriented fantasy and Hum Apke Hain Kaun is exactly that.''

The play follows the film's plot closely. All the ingredients of Bollywood, the music, the costume changes during song sequences and, rather curiously for a stage-musical, even playback singing are retained.Pravesh Kumar as Prem (Salman Khan in the original) plays the besotted Bollywood hero with elan, complete with white suits and flashy ties. Ajay Chabra as the mama and BBC soap opera actress Shobu Kapur as his flashy wife Bhagwanti are adequately bizarre and witty. And songs like Didi, your devar is crazy have the audience tapping to the music. As in the film, with lights dimming to a dramatic red, the music rising to a crescendo, Pooja (sister to Madhuri's Nisha in the original) falls down the red carpeted stairs and dies. Suppressed mirth greets Pooja's exit from the stage to a hospital bed, the curtain firmly closing on her. Is it a satire?

Suman Buchar, of Tamasha Theatre Company, disagrees. ``We are not satirising at all since Hum Apke Hain Kaun was a very good film and everybody knows what Bollywood films are all about.''

Perhaps. But the elements that make a Bollywood film do qualify for a satire on a London stage. Description of an ideal bahu as ``a nice, quietpretty girl'' who is ``BA pass'', delivered by a man in pale blue safari suit is ``seriously funny''.