Play-Readings

6 Plays reflecting the Indo-Brit relationship.

From Samuel Foote's The Nabob (Britain) to Shahid Nadeem's Woman of Sorrow (Pakistan), the range of plays from India, Britain and Pakistan illuminate the centuries-long Indo-Brit relationship. Extracts of readings, accompanied by music.

The plays:

Karna, by Bhasa - one of the earliest surving classical plays from India, written c.4th C A.D.

The Nabob, by Samuel Foote. A contemporary and friend of Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Foote wrote this satire on the nouveau-riche returning in England with their spoils from India in 1773.

Driven Snow, by Girish Karnad - one of modern India's most prolific playwrights. Set in Oxford in the 60s, Girish wrote the play in 2001

Harvest, by Manjula Padmanabhan - written in 1998, this topical play on the harvesting of body parts for medical purposes won the prestigious Genesis Award for Playwrighting

Woman of Sorrow, by Shahid Nadeem - written in 1997 in Pakistan, the play explored the case of a Bangladeshi woman who was trafficked to Pakistan during the Bangladeshi war of independence in 1971

Atrophy, by Callum Crouch - written in 2015, this play about hunger-strikers across the 20th century features one of the key figures of the Indian independence struggles, Bhagat Singh.