Bollywood comedies are major hits at the UK box office grossing big money.

After 'Bunty Aur Babli', 'Maine Pyar Kyon Kiya' and 'No Entry', Priyadarshan's 'Garam Masala' is latest among the Bollywood comedies to make the audiences in the United Kingdom ''laugh all the way to the aisles.

'' The ''brilliant comic sense of timing'' of actor Akshay Kumar and the new teenage heart throb John Abraham's ''cool dude'' act seems to have endeared itself to the UK audience with the film turning out to be the biggest Bollywood hit in UK this year, trade sources said.

The film opened to an excellent response in UK, figuring on the top ten charts in its opening weekend, along with Hollywood films like 'Nanny McPhee', 'Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit', 'Saw II', 'The Brothers Grimm' and 'The Legend of Zorro'.

The film, which was at number eight on the top ten charts, grossed a total of 292,033 UK pounds (Rs 2 crore) in its opening weekend from just 37 cinema screens.

However, what was remarkable was that the film had the highest per screen average, among the top ten films, at 7,892 UK pounds (Rs 5.5 lakhs).

In its second weekend too, the film notched up impressive collections of 104,076 UK pounds (Rs 0.7 crore) while grossing 34,939 UK pounds (nearly Rs 25 lakh) during its third weekend of release.

The total collections of the film in the first 17 days amount to 544,334 UK Pounds (nearly Rs. 4 crore), making it one of the biggest Bollywood hits of the year in the UK.

Trade sources said that given the box office figures of 'Garam Masala', the film can be termed a hit in Britain, specially among the British Asian audience. Though the movie did excellent business in both the US and the UK, its collections in UK were far higher than those in the US.

In fact, the advent of 'Garam Masala' have made a severe dent in collections of Boney Kapoor's 'No Entry', which was doing good business in UK before the release of the Akshay John-starrer, trade analysts aver.