Showbusiness cashes in as Asian arts join mainstream

It has been called, somewhat stereotypically, "Asiamania" and "Bollywood-in-Blighty".

This year sees the high profile opening of an array of British Asian comedy and romance films with huge promotional budgets. In June, Andrew Lloyd Webber opens a $6m Bollywood-inspired musical, Bombay Dreams, to fill the gap left by Starlight Express.

Bradford's south Asian dance and arts company, Kala Sangam, has just toured rural England to sell-out success. In two weeks, the British Film Institute launches its first major south Asian film festival which will last eight months in 50 venues across Britain. The Watermans Arts Centre in west London, one of the country's largest Asian arts venues, reopens this month with a $1.5m development grant.

It is a response to market research in the past year which confirms Asian culture's place in the British landscape and its multimillion pound marketability to non-Asian and Asian audiences alike. Bend it Like Beckham, Gurinhder Chadha's film about suburban football dreams, opens this weekend on more than 450 screens nationwide. But while the hype rages, British Asian actors, comedians and directors say subtle racism still exists in film and theatre, through casting and stereotyping.

The British Asian talent base is huge, but this has yet to be fully reflected in the top jobs in theatre and film companies. Writers warn against "passing fashions for all things Asian" and prefer to be seen as part of everyday British cultural life with no distinctions.

While British Asian films are set to build on the $17m takings from the 1999 comedy East is East, directors say the next move must be to produce a big British black film, to prove that skin colour does not make a difference to budgets.

"Every British producer wants to make the next East is East," said Cary Rajinder Sawhney, head of diversity at the British Film Institute and coordinator of the forthcoming ImagineAsia south Asian film festival.

Chadha has said of Bend it Like Beckham that the story is not merely Asian but universal. It is being marketed in the same way as East is East - to a mainstream comedy market. Key production companies such as Working Title, FilmFour and BBC films have invested in British Asian comedy this year - for mainstream, not art house cinemas.

Forthcoming releases include Meera Syal's Anita and Me, and The Guru, the story of a British Asian mistaken for a sex guru in Gotham, produced by the makers of Notting Hill.

Mr Rajinder Sawhney said: "The important thing now is that these London-born, Birmingham-born, second and third generation British Asian directors get the opportunity to continue producing new work. There is no one image of Asia. Asian arts are not all about Bollywood, or the multi-million pound Bollywood audience in this country."

Young directors such as award-winning Hackney-born Asif Kapadia seek to defy the Bollywood pigeon hole. His internationally acclaimed film, The Warrior, out this month, is an Indian western, shot with a London-taught European crew and Indian actors. Kapadia said: "I don't want to make the best British Asian film, I want to make the best film full stop."

Jatinder Verma, founder of Tara Arts, the first British Asian theatre company, said: "Racism still exists but it is very subtle. In theatres, you still see Asian work as part of an 'Asian season'. We should be seeing it all year round."

It was crucial to have Asians in key positions making artistic decisions and adding to the repertoire.

"We have got to think about investing in talent over the next 25 years."

Just the tickets

Bend it like Beckham

The Warrior

Anita and Me

The Guru

Bombay Dreams

Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical opens at the Apollo Victoria in June, starring two British unknowns as a boy from the slums and a movie mogul's daughter. A raft of Bollywood stars feature

Angelique Chrisafis