Loverlorn teenager Geena (Kalidas) considers Bollywood to be "like soap opera - but with bigger bubbles."

However, she finds herself up to her neck in a frothy collision of Bombay-style dance numbers and East End street savvy in Wooding's debut feature.

A hopeless addict of Bollywood romance, Geena thinks there must be more to life than a business studies course and a family-approved Indian boyfriend.

Then along comes Tractor Boy Jay (McAvoy), who rescues her from a falling scaffolding pole and is soon wooing her at the sari shop where she tends the till.

Complicating matters is Jay's job with rag trade mobster who is in direct (dodgy) competition by a garmet firm run by Geena's brothers Sanjay and Anjil.

They don't like the idea of Geena and Jay walking out or, as Jay's brother Dean (Ciaran McMenamin) puts it: "there's no palefaces in the wig-wam".

This pinballs from Bollywood-influenced surrealism - when the lovers first exchange glances they levitate above the pavement - to geezerish gangsterism with the drama never happily finding a berth in either camp.

The dance setpieces are more Pan's People than Chicago while the blossoming love affair between the odd couple has all the spice of the last poppadom on the plate.

Basically, it's a typical big screen British comedy, charming in an gently amateurish way yet lacking killer gags or compelling storyline.

Ian McShane pops up as Jay's father with an accent that sounds like Taunton out of Glasgow while there's a gay plot strand that's all but invisible until the final minutes.

Lacking the grit of East is East and the sheer joie de vivre of Bend It Like Beckham, this strives to straddle two markets yet satisfies neither.

Tim Evans