Gurinder Chadha set to take ‘Beckham’ to stage

Spicezee Bureau

Mumbai: Her films have been a rage both at home and abroad and now filmmaker Gurinder Chadha has taken a fancy to Broadway. The talented director who is known to churn the savviest potboilers owing to her mix of fusion of Punjabi and foreign culture will now take her superhit film ‘Bend It Like Beckham’ to the stage in UK. After Mira Nair successfully staged her celebrated film ‘Monsoon Wedding’, it’s Gurinder who is out to do us proud. Though the filmmaker refused to divulge details about her ambitious project, she said, “I’m really not allowed to talk about it. But yes, a staged version of Bend It… at this stage of my life sounds very exciting. I’ve never done a play before. To take cinematic elements and put them on stage is a challenging thought. And I think I am up to the challenge.” As per reports, the casting of the stage version of the film is expected to be radically different from the film. “Many of the cast members have moved on, and some of them I’d like to move away from. Jonathan Rhys Meyers, for example…I had a lot of difficulty with him, so much so that when Woody Allen worked with him subsequently in Matchpoint, he wondered how I managed with Jonathan.” Well, we sure hope the stage show makes its way to India.