Tezza's Theatre Place

Ciarán Hinds (Hugh), Colin Morgan (Owen), Adetomiwa Edun (Lieutenant Yolland). Image by Catherine Ashmore Love it or loathe it, the British Empire is a rich source of material that is ready-made for novels or plays – usually suggesting the English were bad while everyone else good. However, some writers have approached the subject in less obvious ways and one of those is Irish playwright Brian Friel, whose 1980 play  Translations  has recently been revived at the National Theatre. 1833 and in the quiet community of Baile Beag, life continues much as it always has. The inhabitants are an insular lot who speak Irish, Greek and Latin – thanks to a knowledge of the classics and the teachings of the Catholic church – but who don’t speak English, the language of their rulers. In the local ‘hedge’ school, aspiring teacher Manus (Seamus O’Hara) is working with Sarah (Michelle Fox) a local girl with a severe speech impediment. His father, schoolmaster Hugh (Ciarán Hinds) has not ye...

https://www.londontheatre1.com/news/196952/a-passage-to-india-park-theatre-london-review/ As a British person, I am meant to be ashamed by the UK’s colonial past. And in some ways, I can understand that. Certain regressive laws introduced during the days of ‘ the empire on which the sun never set ’ are still in place in some of the former colonies, and let’s be honest, the colonial power often abused their position and the local populace. To get an idea of how things were, you can head to the Park Theatre to see Simon Dormandy’s adaptation of E. M. Forster’s classic  A Passage to India . In the city of Chandrapore, in British India, there are two very different types of people – The British and the Indians. They exist side by side, working ‘together’ – with the British in the positions of power – but the two races don’t mix outside of working relationships and they definitely don’t socialise. However, Dr Aziz (Asif Khan) doesn’t entirely believe that this is true. He for exam...