Kanpur: 1857 ****

What's in a name?

This Fringe story is set in the Uttar Pradesh city of Kanpur. Except for some, it wasn’t – the British renaming it Cawnpore, as they had renamed Mumbai and Chennai, among others.

The causes of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 were myriad: hubris, misjudgment, cultural insensitivity, and plain incompetence. Rumours of pig and cow fat being used to grease cartridges were not adequately addressed. The distribution of chapatis – a form of signposting discontent – was ignored. And the big one: the fact that Indians had been subjugated, asset-stripped, and, in some cases, enslaved.

The Rebellion broke out in Meerut and rapidly spread along the Great Trunk Road and beyond: amongst others, Delhi, Gwalior, Jhansi, Lucknow, and Kanpur.

At Kanpur, after a siege, there was a negotiated surrender of around 300 Britons, with safe passage by river promised. However, shots were fired, and a battle ensued, with many killed on both sides and around 200 women and children taken prisoner. As Havelock’s counterforces edged nearer to Kanpur, the 200 were massacred. Reprisals were severe, with mass killings, and ringleaders strapped to cannons to be executed in front of forced local observers. The British knew full well that, while death was instant, it prevented funeral rites for Muslims and Hindus.

Niall Moorjani is the Indian captured by British forces and strapped to a cannon. They are threatened with execution if they do not provide the red-coated British officer (Jonathan Oldfield) answers to specific intelligence questions (to which they may not know the answers) and if they do not condemn the massacre. The officer’s demands for answers and entertainment become a game of cat and mouse, and we all know who wins that one.

The set is simple, with a cannon and a Sikh tabla (Sodhi) providing ambience, percussion, and punctuation to proceedings. The staging is less so, however. The officer appears in the audience and, in turn, drives the narrative, hectors, interrupts, mocks, and demands. Moorjani, having been untied, is briefly even required to join the audience.

Moorjani is a gifted and charismatic storyteller (Mohan: A Partition Story). When left space to tell the story, this comes through. The constant interruptions are symptomatic of where the power lies, but serve to cast a jarring shadow over the events. It is fair to question whether this staging choice might be revisited.

Oldfield’s performance oozes entitlement and hubris, reflecting the era. The juxtaposition between Christian values and massacres is sharply conveyed.

Nelson Mandela and the French Resistance: freedom fighters or terrorists? One of the most popular tourist attractions in Warsaw is the Museum of the Uprising. For decades, the Rebellion was known as the “Indian Mutiny,” placing a cultural and colonial placeholder into history. What’s in a name? Sometimes, everything.