If timesonline.com is to be believed, the ambitious Unforgettable Tour of the Bachchans has 'failed to expand Bollywood's appeal beyond the Indian diaspora'.
The article titled 'Bollywood's Unforgettable World Tour extravaganza fails to woo Westerners' suggests that the only people who have managed to catch the tour are memb
ers of the Indian diaspora."It must be galling," the article begins and points out that despite the huge fan following Bachchans have in India, their reach with the westerners remains restricted.
Zoe Blackler, who has authored this piece, has also quoted Shekhar Ravjiani of the Vishal-Shekhar duo as having said that 85 to 90 per cent of the audience are from the diaspora.
"Bollywood cinema is India's foremost artistic export, so the narrowness of these audiences is striking. It's hard to imagine a Bolshoi world tour playing to 90 per cent Russian émigrés or the Berlin Philharmonic appealing exclusively to German expats," the article point out suggesting, "If anything was going to raise international awareness of Bollywood’s unique brand of magic, this (Unforgettable Tour) should have been it."
Part of the problem, according to Balckler is the high pricing of the tickets. With each ticket costing up to £250, the only ones willing to spend that kind of money are the hardcore Bachchan fans.
The tour, which has been labelled as the Unaffordable Tour in Toronto, has received flack from many quarters. [IN PICS: Akshay rocks Canada]
One of the bloggers points out that a few years ago he managed to get good seats for $100 during the 'Rockstars' tour in Toronto. The same price fetched him one of the last row seats for Unforgettable." Regular tickets went beyond $300 and some floor seats sold for $1000," he rues.
he Sunday show at the O2 Arena in London is apparently not running a full house. According to the report the organisers were hoping to sell about 15,000 tickets… 2,000 less than the venue's full capacity.
Meanwhile Amitabh Bachchan has distanced himself from the pricing of the tickets. In a press briefing Amitabh said, "We don’t look into that aspect. We are contracted to go and perform. The pricing, and the ticketing and the sales are (sic) all done by promoters."
The timesonline.com report also seems to create a picture of a bumbling Bachchan trying to field the questions from the media. It says that the superstar 'claimed to be unaware of the makeup of audiences during the North American leg' and quotes Bachchan as saying, "The lights are so bright we never get to see who's sitting in the audience and who they are."
In the very next line, Bachchan has been quoted as having said tad ironically, "It was more us wanting to meet our audiences – just an opportunity for us to come and meet the fans and to give them the opportunity to see us live."
Things don't end here. The article also reports Abhishek Bachchan feigning surprise on being told that Shilpa Shetty was now the pre-eminent face of Bollywood 'for the broader British public'.
And Abhishek, who had snapped back at a journalist while addressing the press for the very same tour, seemed to have little to say except a pointed, "Really? That’s very good. We're happy for her."
Even as the article paints a rather grim picture for the Unforgettable Tour, it seems like the Bachchans have little or nothing to bother here in India. With the media eating out of their hands, they can be rest assured that none of the awkward questions asked by the international media would be faced here.
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