RNZ: This Way Up

Can a slightly overweight, balding, white guy break into Bollywood?! Simon Morton tries to make his dream of becoming a star of these all-singing, all-dancing movies, a reality.

The Indian film industry produces 1000 films and sells 3 billion cinema tickets every year and it's celebrating its centenary. Anu Anand lives in Delhi and is a big cinema fan.

Fasting diets seem to be all the rage nowadays, but what are they and do they actually work? Dr Michael Mosley's co-author of 'The Fast Diet'.

Up to 1 trillion cicadas are emerging from a 17-year stay underground to overrun parts of the eastern USA. Professor Mike Raupp is an entomologist from the University of Maryland who loves cicadas.

Justin McCurry on the important role that mascots play in Japanese life. Life-size characters in dress-up suits are powerful ways to educate Japanese consumers, from encouraging you to pay your taxes to telling you how to vote.

Professor David Edwards is the director of the Centre For The Developing Brian at King's College, London. He's leading an ambitious project to map the development of the human brain in the months just before and after birth.

Tech news with Peter Griffin. This week, Google launches its own music streaming service. Also one woman's fight to get intimate photos of her taken offline.

A listener's questions about toasters and toasting. Why is it so darn hard to get some breads to toast properly, and how long should your toaster last? We're testing toasters with Bill Whitley of consumer.org.nz.

We're cooking basmati rice four different ways- rapid boil, absorption, in a rice cooker and the microwave- to find out which tastes best. With Julie Clark of Floridita's.

Tech news with Charles Arthur of The Guardian. This week, 3D-printing handguns and measuring news in tweets per minute!

About half of the buildings in the Norwegian capital Oslo, and most of its schools, are heated by burning rubbish. John Tagliabue of The New York Times has been in Oslo looking at its waste-to-energy programme.

Dr Graeme MacRae of Massey University has just got back from Nepal and India where he's been studying the origins and culture of basmati rice.

Helen Russell has visited Billund in Denmark, the home of Lego, where the giant toy company has started building schools.

We get our toes wet in Marlborough as we harvest surf clams with Ant Piper of Cloudy Bay Clams.

Is the smoked fish you buy in the supermarket really smoked or just painted with smoke flavouring? With food technologist Torben Sorensen.