The desire to see this Hampstead Theatre revival of Tom Stoppard’s Indian Ink, was initially fuelled by the theatrical double whammy of Felicity Kendal, combined with one of the UK’s most celebrated living playwrights. This dramatic cocktail of talents is an established winner as the pair were once an item and their partnership garnered much critical acclaim. Kendal is often referred to as his muse and Stoppard wrote the character of Flora Crewe specifically for her. The original text is dedicated to her mother, Laura Kendal, who like her daughter, spent a childhood in India.
Born in 1937, Sir Tom Stoppard died on 29 November 2025, during rehearsals for this production. In this show, Kendal was no longer playing a scandalous, spirited 1930s poet, but the matriarchal sister of Flora Crewe, who is approaching 80 by the 1980s. Like all of Stoppard’s work, Indian Ink has more layers than a tiramisu. At its core, the play is a conversation between two time frames; fading empire-era India and post-colonial Thatcher-era Britain.
There already was a lot to unpack before Stoppard died, in the middle of his revival, starring an ex-lover. Kendal had to suddenly manage personal grief, while learning lines. She also had to ponder the ironic slap of playing a spiky pensioner in the same play you once dazzled in, as a young sex symbol.
The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest evidence for the term Stoppardian is from 1978, in the Listener. The adjective is usually used for works that reflect his multi-layered approach to theatre, which drips with wit, while juggling philosophical quandaries and intersecting complex narratives. The playwright’s death made the casting, timing and themes of Indian Ink even more Stoppardian than they already were. It’s likely he would have enjoyed the sad, awkward but beautiful significance that his demise brought to this production.
Ruby Ashbourne Serkis (daughter of Andy Serkis) plays the role of Flora Crewe, written for her older co-star 3 decades earlier. She is excellent as the Bloomsbury-esque proto feminist who jaunts to Jummapur to ease her escalating tuberculosis. Painted by Modigliani and banished by Gertrude Stein, Stoppard gave Flora Crewe amusing plausibility by linking the character to real and significant people from history and culture. Serkis captures the charm, cheek and fierce intelligence of this fictional literary sensation. She is a magnetic performer and a joy to watch. She makes the character so believable, it’s an effort to remember that she never actually existed.
Indian Ink opens in 1930s India as Flora Crewe arrives for recuperation and with an appetite for mischief, which includes sitting for a local Hindu artist. The play then fast-forwards to ‘80s Britain, where we find Flora Crewe’s sister, in the last years of her life, contemplating her sibling’s legacy. Felicity Kendal gives a flawless performance as Mrs Crewe. If anyone understands the verbal gymnastics and sub textual frolics of Stoppard, it’s Felicity Kendal.
In the middle of a lively, but polite debate about colonial subjugation, Mrs Swan offers Anish Das (Aaron Gill) some cake. ‘Victoria sponge or Battenberg?’ she asks. The choice is ACTUALLY between Queen Victoria, former ruling Empress of India or Lord Louis Mountbatten, last Viceroy of India, who oversaw the transition to independence and the partition of British India into India and Pakistan. That one line is a perfect example of Stoppardian text. He does a lot, with a little. As a fine actress and veteran of the author’s nuances, Kendal served that cake with the perfect balance of playful malice and refined hospitality. That one line of dialogue alone was worth a trip to the theatre on a cold Tuesday night.
Gavi Singh Chera did a fine job of playing Nirad Das, who captures the heart of Flora Crewe with his passion, talent and contradictions. Nirad is in awe of the pre-Raphaelites but disapproves of Bohemian London in the 1920s. With his veneration of English artists and contrived Anglo-Indian patter, he’s a perfect example of the distortions of thought and language which spring from that hyphenated concept. Chera’s performance finds a sweet spot in that dissonance which lends him a winning appeal and underlies the chemistry.
The set design by Leslie Travers had the vibes of a garden furniture display at B&Q. While the script and performances transported me to pre-independence India, the set had a mildly jarring artificiality about it. Perhaps budget restrictions kicked in. It looked a bit cheap, even from seats at the back. Jonathan Kent’s direction seemed absent, but the cracking text kept me so mentally occupied that it hardly seemed to matter, but it probably does.
It’s easy to have a pop at Stoppard for being a centrist liberal who mocks the self-serving romance of British Empire but doesn’t hack at the jugular. He’s an artistic intellectual, not a revolutionary. Either you enjoy the fruits of that extensive labour, or castigate him for being a smart-arse, middle-class establishment luvvie. Whichever side of the fence you fall on, Stoppard will lacerate you with satire and savagery and you will laugh while he’s doing it. So, he wins, really.
This is a wonderful night out, with a superb cast who remind us that even Stoppard’s less celebrated works are sway better than some people’s best. Kendal owns that stage, by accident and design, but Stoppard’s skills are also inescapable.
It was THEIR show when it opened at the Aldwych Theatre in 1995. It’s still their show 30 years later.
Indian Ink is at Hampstead Theatre until 31st January 2025
Reviewer: Stewart Who?
Reviewed: 16th December 2025
North West End UK Rating:
First performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was performed at the National Theatre the following year. Harold Hobson in the Sunday Times called it the most important event in British theatre “of the past nine years” (ie, since Pinter’s The Birthday Party). Stoppard directed his own movie of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1990 and won an Oscar for best original screenplay for Shakespeare in Love (1998)
“Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.”