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First Sri Lankan reality show in UK:
The London Star on board Wellington
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The Wellington |
The derana London Star, one of Sri Lanka's popular reality shows,
featuring undiscovered talent among Sri Lankan community in the UK held
its sixth elimination round on board the historic World War II combat
vessel Wellington on Thames recently.
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An artist with the hosts of the show |
The floating marine museum cum conference hall hosted the grand
event, which saw the number of contestants being pruned to eight from
nine at the tail end of a highly emotional evening.
Males who wore seafarer uniforms and females in contemporary English
ladies attire, took the breath away of all that were present on board
Wellington.
The season one grand finale of the London Star featuring the top
final 3 contestants together with a group of popular Sri Lankan artistes
will be held in June 2010. The venue yet to be announced, the show's
producer Sumith Kadawathage said.
"Our eldest London Star hopeful was in his fifties and the youngest
just 12 years of age," the Director Niroshan Kahawatte said. Despite
having a small production team, we have been able to do an outstanding
job, Kahawatte added.
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Watching some of the past shows |
The show can be viewed by Sri Lankans living in the UK and rest of
the Europe (21 countries) on Sky 805 (Miyuru TV).
Others outside Sri Lanka can watch the show on Channel 1.
The organizers say they want to identify London Star as a talent show
since all the auditions have been edited, not unedited as in a reality
show. The show is set to extend its arms to Italy shortly with
invitations already from a number of European countries.
The Derana London Star is the only show of its kind that has been
filmed outside Sri Lanka and the production team has been getting
invitations from Sri Lankans living in a number of other European
countries to extend the show over to their shores.
"This had been a long felt need. I wanted to do something like this
shortly after my arrival in London 13 years ago," Kadawathage said
adding that the Indian community and their organizing power is a model
for the Sri Lankans to look up to.
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