I haven't laughed so much in ages. The first of Channel 4's four-part series 'Bollywood Star' saw a panel of hapless judges - comprising Radio1 DJ Bobby Friction (proving he knows more about the 'F' word than chef Gordon Ramsey), dance choreographer-cum-fixed-grin Honey Kalaria (desperately seeking anyone without two left feet), Bombay Dreams actress (and I used the word cautiously) Sophiya Haque whose brain and mouth seem disconnected and music producer Bally Sagoo who wished he was anywhere but there - scouring the UK (well OK, Birmingham) to find Britain's first Bollywood star. As a contest it is a total farce, as a documentary it is a tour de force, laying bare the worst of all Asian vices - vanity.

The makers of the show have played a nasty trick on the participants and in the process produced a compelling documentary that seems to have drawn every type of "never was, is not and never will be" Bollywood hopeful out of the woodwork. To borrow a phrase, quite frankly even "I have seen more talent at a supermarket checkout queue".

The precepts of the show are dubious. Why try to find a British Bollywood Star out of a UK Indian population of one million when India has a pool of over one billion to draw upon? And who was responsible for defining the characteristics of this wannabe star?

The essence of Bollywood films has been distilled down by the researchers into factors like having the "right look", an ability to dance a little and perhaps a vague penchant for melodrama. This leaves the judges short-listing a fifty-three year old mother who can pull off a Gubbar Singh impression, a large lady who can do a great turn as a nasty wife (presumably so she can star as a future comedic heroine!) and several participants who cannot speak a word of Hindi.

Some credit is due to Bally Sagoo who asked one contestant the title of the track they had chosen to dance to, and when the reply came out stumbling over the Hindi words, he asked how they were going to cope with the dialogue in the Bollywood movie. Apparently many were going to grasp the lingo in the next seven days. Yeah right!

Bally was out-voted, in stipulating that an ability to speak some Hindi should be a criterion, by the other three judges who seem to be casting for a Bollywood Pantomime rather than a lead role in a Bollywood movie. I suspect Mahesh Bhatt, who will direct this said movie later in the year, may have the last laugh.

The producers have done a great disservice to the Hindi film industry by boiling it down to a few seemingly superficial factors but given that the average Bollywood movie has a budget of £170,000 - I can only presume that buying the lead role part was cheaper than entire cost of producing the 'Bollywood Star' TV show. And who cares if the film flops afterwards?

65% of the average 800 Bollywood films churned out each year flop at the cinema, the backers fervently hoping to make up the costs with DVD/Video sales and merchandising on a further 25% with only 10% ever making any kind of profit. With this type of success rate, it is not surprising to find the industry is a common route for illicit money laundering by India's underworld.

The 'Bollywood Star' show has also insulted a host of real stars like Amitabh Bachchan who started out as actors first and became dancers-cum-Bollywood-heartthrobs later. A very recent Sky Poll listed Bachchan's 1975 film 'Sholay' as the UK's favourite film and he also topped a BBC poll of favourite movie stars of all time. And yet, were he to attend the 'Bollywood Star' auditions today he'd probably fail at the first round on the grounds of not having the right look (too dark, too tall) and being unable to dance. Hopefully his honeyed Hindi vocals would win him a few meagre plus points!

Let us not forget that it took six major stars - Amitabh Bachchan, his wife Jaya Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Kajol and Kareena Kapoor to make 'Kabhie Kushi Kabhie Gham' a successful movie. Another 'mega star' Aamir Khan had to sacrifice a great deal of his own money and, by all accounts his marriage, to make the hit film 'Lagaan'. A film, incidentally, that is not renowned for its dance sequences and featured the village girl charms of newcomer, Gracie Singh. So assuming that the "right look", an ability to dance a little and perhaps someone else's voiceover on the dialogue will actually produce a major Bollywood hit film is laughable.

The makers of 'Bollywood Star' have barely scratched the surface of this vast industry in their haste to produce this program. A more modest, home-grown approach like that take by the 'Bollywood Idol' contest or even the more regimented auditions like those for hit musical 'Bombay Dreams' might actually have unearthed some genuine British Asian talent. Clearer and higher entry criteria would have whittled down the list to the more promising hopefuls, although the viewer would not have had quite such a good laugh in the process.

I have a great deal of sympathy with the many aggrieved participants of the first program who choose to vent their feelings on the show. If they had been told that this was more a Reality-TV show than a contest - would they have put themselves up for such ridicule? One poor girl was even told that she danced like she was at a disco! This produced the highlight of the first show - her 53-year old mother barging in to have a go at the judges. Sadly this juicy segment was squeezed into the last thirty seconds of the first episode.

We all have dreams. Some of us might have Bollywood dreams, but for most of us these really should just remain dreams.

The 'Bollywood Star' four-part series is beign aired on 1 June, 8 June, 15 June and 22 June 2004 on Channel 4 at 9.00pm.