Y’all ready to bhangra? - BHANGRA NATION Review

 Ooh, a theatre review before the show left the theatre! What? I didn’t know he could do that!

DISCLAIMER: THIS REVIEW OF BHANGRA NATION WAS COWRITTEN BY MY BROTHER JOSH BECAUSE

HE SAYS MY REVIEWS ARE TOO LONG. ALSO, AT THE TIME OF WRITING, HE HASN’T SEEN BHANGRA

NATION, THE TOPIC OF THE DAY

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR BHANGRA NATION AHEAD

I would normally include some background information about the journey to add colour to the

review, but as this is the short version, I’ll limit my comments to the following:

We had a lot of trouble finding somewhere to park; when we tried to leave, the Queensway was

closed so we went a very roundabout way, and we encountered at least one street sign that said

Cuba. 

Additional context over!

There is one part which I have forbidden Josh from editing, namely that when we went in the usher

said:

“You have to turn off your phones during the performance [Okay; standard procedure], but only

until the confetti cannon goes off [Less standard]”

Of course, they have to warn about such things for legal reasons, but I don’t know why he didn’t tell

us approximately when the cannon would go off [find out the answer later in the review].

Before the show started, the curtain showed the following:

For anyone else: “Fantastic, we’ve got the right theatre!

For me: “What fonts are those?*”

We were expecting the whole show to just be Bhangra dancing, which would be enjoyable, but not

particularly interesting. However, we apparently missed the tagline: A New Musical.

As such, we were pleased to find out that there was a proper story, albeit a simple one.

It starts exactly how you’d want it to start, with someone coming onstage and yelling:

“Y’all ready to bhangra?”

 

The curtain then turns transparent (observant viewers of the picture above may have guessed that

this is possible due to the projection of the title onto the curtain from both sides), showing five

dancers. There was then a very enjoyable bhangra dance number, followed by an announcer saying

that this was part of a bhangra competition and the TIGRES have just won regionals and are now

progressing to nationals, using TROPE NO. 1: Road to Nationals.

If you think you know where this story is headed, you’re probably right. This musical is Glee and High

School Musical but with a bhangra filter on. Not that that’s a bad thing; this seems to do some of its

own thing, borrowing tropes from other properties as well. The best way to make an original piece

of work is to borrow from so many properties that the end result is unrecognisable.

Cut to TIGRES rehearsal, where we meet our main characters, Preeti and Mary. Both are glad that

their routine is being updated (Not content with Glee and HSM, we’re throwing in Pitch Perfect

already), but Mary wants to modernise the routine whereas Preeti wants to go back to being more

traditional (TROPE NO. 2: Group members disagree about the creative direction of the group).

Mary threatens to leave, and Preeti agrees with her (TROPE NO. 3: One member quits the group just

before a big competition). Cut to Mary in her student accommodation, with her roommate Sunita,

who suggests that as revenge, Mary should form a rival bhangra team (TROPE NO. 4: The leaver

forms a rival team).

It was at this point that we learned that this musical doesn’t just have dance numbers; it also has

songs!

Mary holds auditions and all the prospective dancers are terrible (TROPE NO. 5: Bad auditions

montage), except for a basketball player who was just trying to use the gym (TROPE NO. 6: An

unlikely person is extremely talented). There’s also a teacher there, which I don’t think is a trope,

but feels like it should be.

Meanwhile, the TIGRES (it’s an acronym; it’s not Spanish) are now under the new management of

Preeti, whose purist ideas are irritating the other team members. They bemoan her relentless

approach to rehearsing in another song (TROPE NO. 7: Teammates don’t appreciate the new

leadership). Mary has also been replaced by someone called New Mary “Actually I’m called-” (TROPE

NO. 8: The nameless replacement).

The rest of the post is just highlights (translation: bits I can remember), mostly in the right order

While Mary is rehearsing alone in a dance studio, Billy (I had to look up his name because for some

reason I’m incapable of remembering it), one of the other teammates, comes in, hears the music she

is playing and suggests ways he could improve the music due to his being a DJ and Mary does a

dance with the ghost (done cleverly with a two-way mirror) of her dead mom (TROPE NO. 9: Living

up to the legacy of a deceased parent)

There’s a romance between Billy and Mary (done more organically than this post), and there’s a

clever number that reimagines Mamma Mia’s ‘Dot dot dot’ (“That’s what they did in the old days!”)

as unsent texts projected onto the wall:

It’s the most awkward and realistic text conversation I’ve seen in media.

At one point, Sunita announces that they can enter another team from the same school on a

technicality because her cousin lives in Nebraska (TROPE NO. 10: Dogs can play basketball).

Mary enlists the help of a local dancer/restaurateur to train them but she just has them doing work

in the kitchen, which they take WAY too long to figure out “Oh, she’s Karate Kid-ing us!”

The finale (we’re skipping a lot today) goes exactly how you’d think:

Preeti’s team rebels against her (TROPE NO. 11)

Mary’s team is ill-prepared for the competition (TROPE NO. 12)

They form one super-group with mere hours to rehearse (TROPE NO. 13)

Dance Party! (TROPE NO. 14)

In summary, Bhangra Nation is a very by-the-numbers story but adds its own spin on enough things

to make it unique. However, like this post, the dance numbers were too short. 4 minutes may sound

like a lot, but I would happily have watched for 10 in most of them.

Oh, and the confetti cannon was right at the end of the final dance number.

Bhangra Nation is at Birmingham Rep until March 16