Absorbing and meticulously researched play about Partition: Drawing the Line reviewed

Theatres have taken to the internet like never before. Recorded performances are being made available over the web, many for free. Getting Better Slowly is about a dancer, Adam Pownall, who spent two years fighting Guillain-Barré syndrome. This lucid and enjoyable show (recorded at Lincoln Drill Hall) now looks horribly topical. A young artist, paralysed by a mysterious disease, refuses to surrender and eventually reclaims his vigour and his ability to communicate. That could stand for the profession as a whole.

Hampstead Theatre offers a slate of three recorded plays. (Wild and Wonderland were reviewed in The Spectator on 30 June 2016 and 12 July 2014 respectively). Drawing the Line is about Cyril Radcliffe, the public official charged with overseeing the partition of India in 1947. He had no qualifications for the task and was ordered to separate the intermingled Hindu and Muslim populations in just six weeks. Howard Brenton’s absorbing and meticulously researched play develops into a series of entertaining vignettes.