Bombay Dreams: The nightmare

Sharahbeel’s Bombay Dreams has been sent a cease and desist notice by Rug which owns the show’s copyrights.

KARACHI: Bombay Dreams, the latest project of the Center Stage Productions that kick started on January 27 has successfully been running in Karachi with housefulls for the past week.

Bombay Dreams was originally produced in 2002 by Andrew Loyd Webber and the music of the play was given by the academy award winner AR Rahman.  With Shah Sharahbeel as the director, the play made its’ entrance to Pakistan and Karachi saw huge banners and billboards promoting the hyped theatrical production under, “Directed by Shah Sharahbeel and Music by AR Rahman”. The headline confidently boasted of Rahman’s musical compositions which left many under the false impression that the award winning musician has personally composed music for this production when in fact, Rahman had not even be asked for the commercial use of his name.

The debacle was further highlighted when The Express Tribune explored the violation of intellectual property rights in an article that was published on January 25; Shah Sharahbeel steals from AR Rahman and linked it to the director’s misuse of Rahman’s name.

Whether the production suffered as a result of such an accusation or not cannot be determined, but the publication brought on a myriad of attention and triggered a debate; on February 2 it drew out an authentication post.  The post read under the name of Jo Preston, “The current Karachi production of Bombay Dreams has not been licensed by the Really Useful Group (Rug), which owns the copyright of the show. Centre Stage Productions has not approached Rug in any capacity to ask permission to stage Bombay Dreams, in violation of Intellectual Property laws. “

“We receive many applications to put on our shows and we take the copyright of our shows very seriously. We do not currently have a licensable version of Bombay Dreams, but producers interested in licensing any of our productions can contact us very easily via our website, Centre Stage Productions made no attempt to do this.”

“We have asked the producer to halt the production immediately and if this does not happen we will consider taking legal action against this production of Bombay Dreams.”

The comment raises a fresh set of questions  which stirs a legal and legitimate use of licensing the production itself and it seems strange that a production as big and as successful as Bombay Dreams would be met with such adverse speculations.

On further enquiry and thorough research, it was found that Rug is in fact an international company that was set up in 1977 by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The founder is also the creator of the original Bombay Dreams and is famous for active participation in theatre, film, television, videos, concert productions,  merchandising, publications and music labels. The Really Useful Theatre Company, an owned subsidiary of Rug, is also responsible for licensing productions worldwide.

However, the producer of Bombay Dreams in Pakistan denies being contacted by any licensing authority or any foreign theatre company, “So far we have been receiving housefulls at Bombay Dreams and no official from any theatre company or licensing authority has contacted me,” said the producer blatantly denying any allegations posed the production.

After a rigorous follow up to verify Jo Preston’s threatening comment it was found that Preston is actually the strategic communications specialist  and has clients ranging from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Rug, to the Evening Standard, Forbes Magazine and Euro Disney.

In a follow up with The Express Tribune, it appears that Rug has confirmed their legal stance on the matter and revealed that in fact the post is an authentic verification which has and will be followed with a legal notice to the production house.  Hence, validating the once noticed speculation and legalising it as the threatening comment that will now predict the future of Bombay Dreams in Pakistan.

However, what purpose will a legal notice serve is something that is yet to be seen — especially when the director uses such a sarcastic tone to brush off questions with ambiguous statements, “This has been an aim from the start when your group (The Express Tribune) published Shah Sharahbeel steals from AR Rahman. It appears that your team is personally aiming at something against us and only time will tell what will happen next. If Rug has already mentioned Centre Stage Productions, it’s really not my concern. Whether they have contacted me or not, whether I have replied or not is none of your concern. I might have replied to them, it’s not like they’re (Rug) coming after me with a sword to shut me down.” This comes after The Express Tribune had given the musical glowing reviews.

The production that once started on controversial grounds of theft of intellectual property rights now seems to be treading on thin ice for plagiarism and copyright; only time will tell what the future has in store for the diabolical production.

Jo Preston from Rug verifies her earlier post via email with

The Express Tribune:

Thank you for your post. I can confirm that I am the Really Useful Group’s (Rug) official spokesperson and that the comment on the site can be quoted as an official statement from a spokesperson at Rug. As I said in my comment, Rug has sent a cease and desist letter but has not yet received any correspondence from Centre Stage Productions

Dominic, a legal representative at Rug sent an official email verifying that Jo Preston is a representative and spokesperson of the organisation:

I work in legal and business affairs at Rug. I can confirm that Jo Preston is our official spokesperson and the press release below your article is our official response at the moment

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2011.