A Passage to India review: Rich stage effects from simple means
FEW novels translate so well to other media as those of EM Forster, and Simon Dormandy’s adaptation of A Passage To India is the latest of several stage versions.
Tibu Fortes and Asif Khan with Phoebe Pryce in an adaptation of EM Forster’s novel
Unsurprisingly, at a time when academics are “decolonising” the literary syllabus, it focuses on the Indian characters Aziz (Asif Khan), Hamidullah (Tibu Fortes) and Godbole (Ranjit Krishnamma).
Apart from Fielding (Richard Goulding) and Mrs Moore (Liz Crowther) – both excellent – the British are thoroughly unsympathetic, which is perfectly valid, and insufficiently differentiated, which is not.
The production’s chief virtue lies in the rich stage effects created from the simplest means.
Caves, boats, trains and even an elephant are magically conjured up from a store of cloths, crates and sticks.