Jessica Hines illustrates how Bollywood first crossed over into mainstream Western culture.

Are Bollywood films about to make the big leap into mainstream British cinema? This possibility was first raised back in 2001 when Lagaan, a film about plucky Indian villagers taking on the dastardly British in a game of cricket, was nominated for an Oscar. The following year, big budget epic Devdas, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, was released at Cannes and went on to do good box office business in the UK.

This fashion for the 'Bollywoodesque' – an unashamed delight in spectacle, bursting into song at any emotional crisis - found favour in Britain and America. Football film Bend It Like Beckham had Bombay star Anupam Kher bhangra-ing around Ealing; Moulin Rouge was, in essence, a Bollywood movie with a mega-budget.

The Guru had Heather Graham getting her kit off to teach Indian boys about love, without the passion killer of her entire family demanding marriage. But all these films were also successful in India, where audiences have been delighted at the interpretations of Bollywood by the West. A kind of, "Oh, so that's what we look like" response.

In 2002, London went into Bollywood overdrive – Selfridges declared that for a month it was in fact Bollywood, and not, as we had thought, a large department store on Oxford Street. Andrew Lloyd Webber launched Bombay Dreams, ensuring that every rich Indian who came over for their annual escape from the summer heat went to at least one of his shows.

Bombay Dreams and Selfridges' rebrand sent the capital's PR companies into a feeding frenzy. Suddenly everything was Bollywood, from glittery hair clips and bejewelled sandals to bhangra keep fit and beaded interior decorating tat. The fashion shoots in the glossies were all about making that bright pink chiffon and sequined top look good.

How much this fashion will help or hinder the assimilation of Bombay films remains to be seen. Certainly the Bombay film industry is keen. The unprecedented warmth of the response to Lagaan and Devdas was greeted with jubilation by the good folk of North Bombay. Many are determined that the gushy overtures made by the British public actually meant that they wanted a long-term relationship and not just a quick knee trembler behind the Curzon Soho. And if anyone can make this work, it's the Bombay film industry.

Bollywood is not what the PRs told us it is. Admittedly, from the outside it is large and hectic. It even veers dangerously towards high camp kitsch on many an occasion. But it is no naive ingénue dazzled by the bright lights of London town. It has been working the changing nature of the overseas market for almost 100 years.

The professed interest of a wider, whiter audience has alerted Indian producers to the possibility of making more money from an already lucrative market. This is most welcome because traditional markets within India have changed. There is no longer one North Indian market. Thanks to the arrival of cable and satellite television, a split has occurred between the urban and rural markets.

As a result the top filmmakers tend to aim at the urban and overseas markets: "Who needs Bihar?" [a dirt poor state in North East India] being their defiant cry. Everyone recognises the need to cultivate new audiences with a crossover film.

The first of these crossover successes was Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding (2001). Director Nair believes that films work when they are grounded in the filmmakers' drive to tell their own stories. Along with Brit-Asian scriptwriter Farrukh Dhondy, she confesses to being constantly harassed by producers from Bombay to make/write a 'crossover film' for them. This is an elusive concept that will simultaneously appeal to the sub-continent's melodramatic tendencies and cut through the West's ennui and cynicism allowing us all to indulge in a global group hug.

Mira Nair believes that the only thing that will make Indian cinema prevail in the global market is the quality of the product, maintaining that Indian filmmakers at home and abroad have to, "Have the discipline of the craft of filmmaking and the rigours of storytelling. That is what the films have to have – quality. It is the only thing that will last." She points out that the international market is too difficult to get into without it. This is why Iranian cinema has done so well outside its own country. "[Iranian cinema] has very finely told stories of local existence. This has yet to happen with Indian cinema."

As a market-responsive industry, the top Bollywood producers are already planning films polished with the highest production values for the global audience. The next instalment in the crossover genre, Gurinder Chadha's Bride And Prejudice stars Aishwarya Rai and will marry Jane Austen's novel with a Bollywood treatment.

It is due to be released this October and will have everyone talking about the delights of East meets West once again.

For more information on Bollywood and details of upcoming movies on Channel 4, check out the channel4.com/film website.

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