The Stage

The Far Pavilions

Published Monday 18 April 2005 at 15:25 by Mark Shenton

MM Kaye’s bestselling 1978 novel The Far Pavilions, set amidst the early days of the British Raj in India and previously turned into a five-hour TV mini-series in 1984, now becomes a galumphing great Asian white elephant of a musical.

In condensing an epic (960 page) book into a lavish, through-sung stage spectacle, it’s a bit like Les Miserables, with a bit of Bombay Dreams thrown in thanks to the occasional orchestral and choreographic nod to its north Indian setting (though without that show’s sense of ironic fun).

But while the musical creative team includes Les Mis veterans like David Braun-White (musical supervisor/arranger) and John Cameron (orchestral scoring), Philip Henderson’s music lacks memorable melodies but is instead mostly sustained on a tide of bland anthemic statements and syrupy ballads.

Stephen Clark’s galloping, sometimes incoherent adaptation of the novel cuts across a great swathe of the first 25 years of the British Raj, playing out a dense and convoluted story against it of an orphaned Englishman who was brought up in India as a Hindu, then returns there as an adult to struggle with the conflicting claims of his identity and heart.

Clark’s lyrics - with rhymes of the order of “British” and “skittish” - are hardly a delight on the ear. But Gale Edwards’ production is, at least, a delight on the eye, with a ravishing set by Lez Brotherston, even if the revolve is a little over-active, and beautiful costumes from Andreane Neofitou, another Les Mis veteran.

The equally attractive, vocally powerful cast also contains several ex-Les Mis alumni in the principal roles. Hadley Fraser leads them in ardent, impassioned voice as the conflicted Ashton Pelham-Martyn, while Simon Gleeson plays his best friend and David Burt gives another of his hapless turns as the stock villain of the piece. As the two women in Ash’s life - the very English Belinda and the Asian Princess Anjuli - Dianne Pilkington and Gayatri Iyer sing prettily and look even better. There is also strong support from Asian actors Kabir Bedi, Kulvinder Ghir and Sophiya Haque.