Hampstead may be London’s most prominent theatre to not have an artistic director, but the team there certainly have programming patterns. One of the most notable is the recent tradition of lesser known Tom Stoppard play there at Christmas. In 2023 it was Rock ‘n’ Roll, last year it was The Invention of Love, and for 2025 it’s 1995’s Indian Ink. Not staged in the UK since its premiere – though there was a big off-Broadway revival in 2014 – it’s a typically complicated (ie Stoppardian) work from the playwright. Half of it is set in India, 1930, as progressive British poet Flora Crewe gets up to various escapades at the end of the Raj; the other half is set in the ’80s, as an American academic attempts to get to the bottom of the mysterious end of Flora’s life. As well as being a good old yarn, Indian Ink is an exploration of the difference between English and Indian art and poetry. There’s a lot going on, basically.
Directed by Hampstead regular Jonathan Kent, this revival stars Felicity Kendall as Flora’s younger sister Mrs Swan in the ’80s sections – a neat piece of casting as Kendall played Flora in the original production. She’ll be joined by Ruby Ashbourns Serkis as Flora and Gavi Singh Chera as dashing Indian painter Nirad Das.
