Review: Indian Ink (Hampstead Theatre)

Review by Sam Waite

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There’s a certain sense of melancholy which hangs over this new production of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink. With the esteemed playwright’s passing only weeks before the play’s opening, Hampstead Theatre automatically becomes the first major theatre to host Stoppard’s work posthumously, as well as the last to rehearse his work during his lifetime. In an odd trick of fate, this timing lends itself to his script’s explorations of nostalgia and loss, allowing for that aforementioned melancholy to be intwined with a feeling of rich catharsis.

Premiering onstage in 1995 after an earlier version of the story played on the radio in ’91, Indian Ink follows two sisters in different stages of their lives. In the 1930s, elder sister Flora Crewe has travelled to India for her health and for her own cultural enrichment. She is a famous poet and an almost startlingly modern woman, whose escapades, humour, and risqué work frequently shock those she meets. Decades later, younger sister Eleanor takes visits from two men wishing to learn more about Flora – a biographer to whom she gives little new information, and an Indian painter who she meets with far more generosity, of spirit and of information.

Stoppard’s script isn’t a perfect one, with the first act lingering that bit too long and the second seeming overly brisk by comparison. His key strength here was in his command of themes, the differences between cultures and between characters clear on the page and, as a result, on the stage. No one is better or more moral under Stoppard’s eye, but the divisions which threaten newly forming friendships and romantic attractions are always bubbling below the surface, threatening frequently to spill over. There is also a great deal of humour to the text, with the sisters in particular given moments to shine – “I’m not gaga,” says Eleanor when questioned on her grasp on Flora’s history, “I’m just old.”

As Flora, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis gives a suitably fearless performance. An audacious, brash role which calls for potentially offensive statements, indelicate leaps from properness to vulgarity, and a plot-essential moment of full-frontal nudity, Serkis proves up to the challenge and throws herself in with abandon. Perhaps the one critique with her work on stage would be in Flora’s collapsing coughs, a result of the illness for which her doctor has advised “somewhere warm.” Unfortunately, I found myself unconvinced and the health scare too mannered to be believable, but this is a small moment in an otherwise captivating, rapturous performance.

Returning to Indian Ink after originating the part of Flora Crewe both on airwaves and on the stage, Felicity Kendal is magnificent as Mrs Swan, née Crewe – the younger sister of Flora, whose passing we meet Eleanor decades after. Kendal’s is a more sardonic, dryly comic role, and she finds the wry humour in every line, making her final moments in which grief is finally allowed to enter the performance all the more powerful. In quieter moments, she has the ability to fill the space with her presence and make all in attendance feel her emotions, even as her face and gestures seem so miniscule, ever undetectable in their shifts.

Among the ensemble surrounding these two immensely talented women, three men make themselves difficult to forget, owing especially to their connections with either Kendal or Serkis. As biographer Eldon Pike, Donald Sage Mackay balances a genuine passion for Flora’s work and a desire to expand her canon with a layer of sleaze, an out-for-himself quality that Kendal’s Mrs Swan meets with a derisive, deliberate effort to under-inform him. Gavi Singh Chera, as Nirad, and Aaron Gill, as Anish, play father-son artists who forge connections with each of the sisters, and both are so charming, so effortlessly likable that these connections develop before our eyes with no questions as to why.

Jonathan Kent, the production’s director, does little to overwhelm the performances, instead allowing Stoppard’s text to speak for itself and his fine cast to deliver their work accordingly. Kent demonstrates a clear sense of where Stoppard intended a whimsical sense of humour, with Flora’s letters to her sister mirroring Mrs Swan’s remembering of the stories, and allows just the right moments for the audience to laugh at a joke or else sit with a moment. Using the space to allow a sense of scale and grandeur, Kent also has actors enter and exit through the audience, delivering lines to those onstage to establish their lengthy approach. Leslie Travers’ charmingly old-fashioned sets, pulleyed up and lowered down to quite literally drop us into locations, becomes even more effective for this use of the auditorium as a set in and of itself.

Travers’ strongest contribution is the garden in which Mrs Swan takes her guests, a lush, flowery grove which serves to connect the colourful nature of her sister’s travels and the decorative portraits around which much of the plotlines revolve. The image is beautiful, and instantly arresting, as is the simple but attractive house in which Flora spends her time whilst in India. Along with a finely detailed interior for her bedroom, the cosy exterior allows us to see what little Flora needs to get by, and how comfortable and intimate she is with those who she trusts to allow into her personal spaces.

While the loss of Tom Stoppard is still fresh in the hearts and minds of fans and theatregoers, this new production at Hampstead Theatre shows that his ideas are still universal, his themes still prescient, and his work still able to evoke genuine emotion in an audience. With Felicity Kendal putting her considerable gifts into the role of Eleanor, and with a strong, vibrant chemistry between Ruby Ashbourne Serkis and Gavi Singh Chera, Stoppard’s play shows signs of age, but in the form of richness and a ripening of what powerful statements already skirted along its surface.

Indian Ink plays at Hampstead Theatre until January 31st

For tickets and information visit https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2025/indian-ink/

Photos by Johan Persson