Drawing The Line by Howard Brenton - Hampstead

The World Premiere of Drawing The Line a new play by Howard Brenton, about the lead up to the Partition of India to create Pakistan, at the Hampstead Theatre, a 325-seat Off West End venue, in north London, from 3 Dec 2013 to 11 Jan 2014.

It is directed by Howard Davies and designed by Tim Hatley.

A In 1947 Mr Justice Cyril Radcliffe was summoned by the Prime Minister from the Court where he was presiding and given an extraordinary mission. He was to travel to India, a country he had never visited and of which he had almost no knowledge, and, with limited survey information, no expert support and no knowledge of cartography, to draw the border which would divide the Indian sub-continent into two new Sovereign Dominions: India and Pakistan. And he had only six weeks in which to complete the task. Wholly unsuited to his role, Radcliffe was unprepared for the dangerous whirlpool of political intrigue and passion into which he was plunged; one of religious and racial turmoil, blood feuds and even an illicit liaison between the Leader of the Congress Party and the Viceroy's wife. As he began to break under the pressure he came to realise that he held in his hands the fate of millions of people