English actress Felicity Kendal relives childhood in India with new London play

London, Dec 23 (PTI) Veteran English actress Felicity Kendal, who grew up in India with her family’s travelling Shakespeare troupe, is rekindling her childhood nostalgia with a new production of ‘Indian Ink’ in London.  The 79-year-old star of stage and screen is revisiting the play set in the Raj era of the 1930s in the role of Eleanor Swan, the ageing sister of a free-spirited fictional poet named Flora Crewe who toured India at a time when the freedom struggle was gathering momentum.

It is penned by playwright Tom Stoppard, who drew upon his own Indian childhood, and this new production opened at London’s Hampstead Theatre soon after he passed away aged 88 last month.  “It is derived from an elegantly structured radio play," shares Greg Ripley-Duggan, producer and chief executive of Hampstead Theatre.  “It was very early in my conversation with Tom [Stoppard] that the idea of Felicity Kendal playing Mrs Swan – Flora Crewe’s younger sister who appears in the play as a mature woman – came up... Tom was also clear that he wanted ‘the atmosphere of India’ present on stage,” he recalls.  Felicity along with her sister Jennifer Kendal, wife of actor Shashi Kapoor, travelled around India as part of their family’s Shakespeareana company – performing plays across the subcontinent, a story captured in the 1965 Merchant Ivory Production ‘Shakespeare Wallah’.  The play ‘Indian Ink’ was Stoppard’s nod to those years, with Felicity essaying the younger role of Flora Crewe in the play when it was originally staged in 1995. It is replete with the playwright’s critical view of British imperialism, something that shines through in many of the dialogues.  “It’s your country, and we’ve got it. Everything else is bosh,”exclaims Flora, portrayed by actress Ruby Ashbourne Serkis.  The production is on in London until the end of January 2026, before a run in the city of Bath, south-west England.

It is backed up by a mixed cast of British Indian actors, including Gavi Singh Chera as handsome Indian painter Nirad Das, Aaron Gill as his son Anish Das and Sagar Arya as Coomaraswami of the Theosophical Society. The action on stage alternates between the 1930s and 1980s, with both timeframes colliding towards the climax.  Popular  British Indian musician-composer Kuljit Bhamra injects the sitar and tabla notes into this latest revival, which is directed by Jonathan Kent.

Satirising the self-importance of the ruling classes, ‘Indian Ink’ spotlights how creativity can bridge even the most profound cultural barriers through the poetic writings of a travelling artist. PTI AK      GRS GRS