DRAWING THE LINE Hampstead Theatre

Howard Brenton’s latest and attention-grabbing play, directed by Howard Davies with his usual efficiency, is about the partitioning of India in 1947. Prime Minister Clement Atlee dispatches Judge Cyril Radcliffe to divide the sub-continent into two new sovereign dominions. He has only five weeks to dismantle an empire. The haste is indecent. Radcliffe has a brilliant mind; but he has never been to India and he knows nothing about cartography. He is completely out of his depth and totally overwhelmed. He is an honourable man and wants to do what is right and fair; but he very soon realizes there can never be a just border between India and Pakistan. Hindus and Muslims will never agree. Whatever line he draws will result in the deaths of millions the moment Britain pulls out. There is nobody he can turn to for guidance. Radcliffe (sympathetically written and sympathetically acted by Tom Beard) is the patsy.