Bollywood has wide appeal, says actress

Indian actress Carol Furtado got her big break performing on MTV alongside Guns & Roses guitarist Slash.

But rather than heading down the rock'n'roll path, Furtado stuck to her roots and is helping to popularise Bollywood around the world.

She stars in Merchants of Bollywood, an all-singing, all-dancing production which tells the story of a young girl, her grandfather and their love of dance, while exploring the workings of Indian cinema.

Capitalising on the success of the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, the show has been performed more than 850 times to over two million people.

"It's something I think no one really expected," Furtado told AAP from Mumbai.

"Everyone knew it was going to be popular but we never really expected the kind of reactions and acknowledgments and acceptance that we've gotten worldwide.

"Definitely Slumdog Millionaire has had this rippling effect all over, because it has only made Bollywood more popular."

Beyond the popularity of the film, Furtado believes the show has broad appeal because it deals with the most universal of themes - love.

She said she has been thrilled to discover that only a small proportion of their audiences are Indian.

"You would assume that since it's an Indian show you would get Indian audiences, but you would be highly surprised to know that in an audience of 3,000 maybe there would be 30 Indians there," she said.

"Local audiences are enthralled and excited to come and watch the show because they want to know what it is all about."

Furtado started out in beauty pageants before being discovered while dancing in a nightclub when she was a teenager.

Her first major performance was at the launch of MTV in India in 1996, where she found herself in the company of Slash from Guns & Roses.

"The irony of it all was I saw him all day for technical rehearsals and really didn't know who he was because he had his hair tied up and his face was seen ... so you couldn't really tell who he was," she said.

"We just exchanged pleasantries over the coffee table a few times, and it was only during the performance that I was like, oh my god ok that was Slash."

Merchants of Bollywood is produced by Australian brothers Mark and Tony Brady and first toured Australia five years ago.

A bigger version of the show, featuring the latest Bollywood songs, returns in February for a run of shows in Melbourne and Sydney until April.