MUMBAI: Salim Merchant of the music composer duo Salim-Sulaiman, who has put together the music of the stage musical show 'Disco Dancer-The Musical', has said that he and his sibling were clear from the start that Bappi Lahiri's original music for the eponymous Mithun Chakraborty-starrer film 'Disco Dancer' would be retained for the musical.

After serving a delectable treat to the audience of West End London, the stage musical was held in Mumbai at the NSCI Dome recently and opened to good reviews. The event was attended by several members of the Hindi film fraternity like Mithun Chakraborty, Nitin Mukesh, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Rema Lahiri with son Rego Lahiri, Sunidhi Chauhan and Anu Malik.

Actor Suniel Shetty has brought the show to India along with Saregama. Salim Sulaiman, the duo behind the reimagined score of Bappi Lahiri's iconic tunes were in attendance as well. Babbar Subhash, the director of the original Disco Dancer, was also present.

Salim Merchant said, "Suleiman and I were clear that we wanted to retain the music of Bappi Da the way it was. We did not tamper with the undeniably iconic melodies as we did not want anyone to feel that we had diluted the magic of the original score. However, we reimagined the score to suit the demands of the choreography, the action sequences and the movements of the dancers and actors on stage".

The original star of 'Disco Dancer', Mithun Chakraborty shared that making 'Disco Dancer' was full of challenges and a lot of people made fun of the idea even before it was complete. He said, "B Subhash had a great musical sense and invested his faith in me against all odds. The film was declared as a flop in the very first week itself but then it took off in the second week and kept running for over two years! But a cult film like this comes only once in a lifetime. And now to relive those memories with this musical has been just incredible. I can't explain what I am feeling right now".

Suniel Shetty also grew emotional at the premiere and said, "I am very happy and excited that the next generation of stars has paid such a fantastic tribute to some of the greatest legends of Bollywood. What a joy it has been to revive the memories of such an iconic film where each and every song was a superhit and made you dance or sing or feel something. This musical too evokes deep emotional reactions from the audience and my son Ahan can vouch for that as he too was among the audience".

He further mentioned, "This was a film that was truly historic and in the 1980's, is supposed to have done a business of over a 100 crore! Today, that can be estimated to be over 2000 crore! And yet, after so many years, the magic that people felt then is still alive. Even the kids in the audience were singing 'Jimmy Jimmy' aloud".

The guests at the premiere also included Sunny Leone, Mini Mathur, Tanuja Mukherjee, Jannat Zubair, Arshad Warsi, Nikita Dutta, Akriti and Sukriti Kakar, Namashi Chakraborty, Ahan Shetty, Sanaya Irani, Uorfi Javed, Orry Awatramani, and Delnaz Irani.

Salim-Sulaiman were clear on retaining Bappi Lahiri's music for 'Disco Dancer-The Musical'

(SOURCE: IANS)