More About "Mumbai Calling"

First broadcast on ITV1 on Wednesday 30th May 2007, Mumbai Calling is a sitcom pilot based around an Indian call centre.

Mumbai may not be on your doorstep, but it's certainly on the end of a phone line. Sanjeev Baskhar's one-off comedy lifts the lid on a call centre a mere eleven taps on your phone keypad and a short 4,500 mile flight away from Blighty's cool shores. For that overdraft extension, insurance quote or fuzzy TV screen complaint, Mumbai will certainly be called.

Phillip Glass (Henry Goodman - Murder in Suburbia, Mayor of Casterbridge) has acquired a failing call centre in a job lot purchase, and promptly dispatches the reluctant Kenny Gupta (Sanjeev Baskhar - The Kumars, Goodness Gracious Me) to take charge and attempt to turn its fortunes around.

Jetted to Mumbai from mundane middle-England suburbia, Gupta is thrown out of the frying pan and straight into the sizzling fire. He's not alone in his task, aided and abetted in equal measures, by Phillip's pampered offspring, Tiffany Glass (Sophie Hunter - Friends, Midsomers Murders) and Anthony Harris (Andres Williams - Doctors, Foyles War).

As the trio arrive in Mumbai, the fragrant scent of a new life, packed with possibilities fills the air. However, the jubilant mood is immediately quashed upon arrival at the call centre's HQ.

Once there, Kenny encounters a centre run by Dev, (Nitin Ganatra) a manager more interested in using the centre to help fund his own numerous profitable side lines rather than making profits for its English owners. Up until now, Dev's sole mission in life is to cut deals and make sure he gets the greater portion!

But now he faces competition from Kenny who has his own mission to complete. He must make this call centre a success not only for the sake of his job, but to win the affections of his bullying boss' daughter, the beautiful Tiffany; who he has admired from afar for years.

Tiffany has an axe to grind with her over-bearing father and like Kenny is desperate to make her mark. Intelligent and strong willed, Tiffany must prove to "daddy" she can make a real success of herself. At 31, she has never worked and is single, alone. Mumbai is her calling!

With her gormless, freeloading cousin Anthony in the tow, the unlikely trio launch an all out attack on Dev's management style but quickly find that local knowledge will (nearly) always win out.

Following the positive reception of the pilot, ITV ordered a full series of this comedy. Scripted by a 12-strong team, it is scheduled to be broadcast in a prime-time slot on ITV1 in the autumn.