MUMBAI: Hindi film actor Anupam Kher has launched a London chapter of his Actor Prepares, making it Britain's first official Bollywood acting school.

The school aims to improve the quality of Bollywood's notorious over-the-top hammy acting and represents the next step in the growing connection between Britain and the Hindi film industry.

"I am trying to kill off a certain style of cliched Bollywood acting. It's already dying so it is the right time to do this international school," Anupam told IANS.

The school is to be based in the West London neighbourhood of Ealing, home to Ealing Studios which made a string of well known English films in the 1950s.

It will work out of the Ealing Institute of Media, and 60 students will be admitted in the first year.

Although most students are expected to be South Asians, Anupam said there was interest among white Britons as well.

The school is a partnership between Actor Prepares, Heathrow City Partnership, a local not-for-profit organisation, and the Ealing Institute of Media, which is a part of Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College.

"It will provide the first course of its kind in which actors from Indian cinema and elsewhere come to Britain to pass on their inside knowledge," added Kher.

Stars such as Boman Irani, Tabu, Urmila Matondkar and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who are the visiting faculty at Actor Prepares Mumbai, are scheduled to be involved in the teaching programme.

Courses will include martial arts, yoga, dance, music and Hindi, diction, improvisation and acting on camera.