Last Updated on February 28, 2026
Hampstead Theatre reprises Tom Stoppard’s play.
4.0 out of 5.0 starsIt seems especially poignant that Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink opens at Hampstead Theatre soon after the playwright’s death a few weeks ago. First premiered in London in 1995, Indian Ink returns to London with one of the original actors, Felicity Kendal, for whom Stoppard wrote the original radio play version, back on stage.
Directed by Jonathan Kent, Indian Ink tells the story of Flora Crewe (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis), a free-spirited, Bloomsbury Group poet who has been painted by Modigliani in Paris, and who captivates the Indian artist Nirad Das (Gavi Singh Chera) when she travels to India in the 1930s in the vain hope of improving her health – she is fatally ill with TB. Fast forward 50 years to the 1980s, when Eldon Pike (Donald Sage Mackay), an American would-be biographer, is researching his footnotes for the collected letters of Flora Crewe that he plans to publish. Pike visits Flora’s sister, Eleanor Swan (Felicity Kendal), who is the keeper of many of Flora’s letters and has inside knowledge about her sister she may or may not share. A second visitor seeks out Eleanor, this time Anish Das (Irvine Iqbal), the son of the artist Nirad. He shows her a nude his father painted of Flora 50 years before, which suggests that they might have been lovers.
As with all of Stoppard’s plays, there are many intertwined levels of meaning to unpack. Themes of creativity, loss and how art bridges cultural barriers are explored. Indian Ink is suffused with nostalgia for a bygone era in India while also critiquing the Empire. ‘I wouldn’t trust them to run the Hackney Empire’, quips Flora shortly after meeting some of the British officers in India.
The dialogue maintains wit throughout, with the two female leads delivering all the best lines. These characters are well-developed, and both Kendal and Ashbourne Serkis effectively capture the spirit of free-spirited women who enjoy life and each other. Among the many male characters, Singh Chera, as the artist enchanted by Flora, was the most affecting. The evolving relationship between Flora and Nirad Das was the most compelling part of the play, featuring discussions on Indian art’s nature and the impact of British education and imperial rule on traditional art forms, which were overshadowed by the Victorian aesthetic. Likewise, scenes with Eleanor and Das’s son, Anish, were heartfelt and a pleasure to watch. Less engaging were the scenes at the British Club with the bumbling officer and his colleagues. These seem rather dated. The American would-be biographer kept popping up in the audience, reading his footnotes about the life of Flora, a device used too often. His bumbling around India seeking more evidence for his theories about Flora’s life weakened the drama rather than adding to it.
Indian Ink is beautifully staged with the set (Leslie Travers) filled with trees and inky light, capturing both the lush verdant Indian landscape, filled with erotic charge, as well as an English garden where Eleanor serves tea to her visitors on a Nepalese brass tray. Indian Ink jumps backwards and forwards in time between the 1930s and 1980s through letters written by Flora to her sister, Eleanor. Staging the two eras alongside one another on the stage facilitated the flow of the narrative and emphasised the presence of each sister in the mind of the other despite their physical distance when Flora left for India. It is Flora’s death that leads Eleanor to have her own life in India after marrying a man she met at her sister’s grave.
Indian Ink is one of Stoppard’s lighter plays, which is perhaps why it has not been reprised in London for the past three decades. Yet it is entertaining to watch with well-drawn female characters and plenty of witty dialogue. As with many of Stoppard’s plays, the more one knows about the intellectual ideas being discussed – here the concept of rasas, the history of Indian art, incidents in Indian resistance to the Raj, and the political role of the Rajputs – the more one might enjoy some of the more esoteric discussions. It is a joy to see Felicity Kendal on stage. Overall, there are perhaps too many strands to keep the more engaging parts of Indian Ink flowing.
Indian Ink runs at Hampstead Theatre from 3 December 2025 to 31 January 2026
Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, NW3 3EU
Looking for something different? Check out our review of Ballet Shoes, currently showing at the National Theatre.
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