Home grown English soap returns after a decade!

This one's big! After A Mouthful of Sky, Bombay Talking will be the second English language soap to be produced in India. The show, based on the lives of Page 3 socialites will air on Zee Cafe by the first week of November. Produced by UTV, this is one venture that seems to be an attempt to tap the English speaking urban upwardly mobile junta, who are avid viewers of the channel. "We are dealing with Page 3 here, but not on a superficial level. The scope of a soap is much more than a movie, because I have more time on my hands. The soap is primarily in English, but we will have characters who will speak in Hindi. We are trying to keep it colloquial, so that we keep the Indian feel of the show intact," says director Aanand Rai. Our sources tell us that the show is loosely based on the lives of Amitabh Bachchan and the Kapoor clan, something that the director dismisses as rumours. "It is the story of a girl who comes to the city to become something, thus the name Bombay Talking," says Rai. The show stars Manoj Bidwai (Rihhaee), Priyanka Bhasin and Manoj Gulati. It was a deliberate attempt to take on relatively unknown actors to keep the essence of the theme alive. "These actors carry no excess baggage and seem very real, so people can identify with them," says Aanand, who feels that it's a challenge to do something different because there is a constant fear of failure that keeps the adrenalin flowing. Interestingly, this is the third show on Zee Cafe in a month's time that has come from the Indian stable -- After Hrs, hosted by Nina Manuel, produced by Face Entertainment, and Simply Style, hosted by Bandana Tewari. The promos of the soap that is currently on air are quite suggestive ieces. In one of them, there is a news reader reading out a story, followed by shots of something that looks dangerously close to somebody shooting a MMS clip -- the girl terming it as her 'debut movie'! If these promos on-air are anything to go by, then this is one show that promises a lot of sex and scandal -- not that the viewers are going to mind, being brought up on a staple diet of Friends and Will and Grace!