BBC plans 'animal musical' with Bollywood stars

If BBC has it's way Bollywood heartthrobs like Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan would soon be singing and dancing with members of the animal kingdom in a grand musical.

BBC natural History channel which launched in India recently, wants to do an animal musical with the Mumbai based film industry serving as the background.

"We have been wanting to do an animal musical for long and the fantasy song and dance land of Bollywood will be the perfect setting for it," channel head Andrew Jackson told PTI in a telephonic interview from Singapore.

Jackson whose credentials include wild life programmes featuring Hollywood superstars like Julia Roberts and Goldie Hawn, now wants to collaborate with Mumbai's leading men and ladies.

"Bringing in a star adds a lot to a programme. When someone like Julia Roberts comes on board a show, the show and the cause that it is espousing, in this case wildlife protection, gets a great boost. So we would love to include Bollywood stars in our Indian programming," said Anderson.

Though a late entrant into the market, Jackson is confident of the channel's success, partly due to India's love for all things BBC.

"People in India love the brand of BBC and I am saying this out of personal experience. And our other strength is the variety that we offer. Though we have entered late, the audience is familiar with our programmes through Animal Planet and other platforms," said Anderson.

And now the audience will get to see a lot more of programmes shot in India.

"We haven't shot in India for a while. We are planning to launch a show about Asian elephants. They are controversial animals and a series about them will be interesting," said Anderson.