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RSC's Midnight's Children Returns to UK for Tour

The Royal Shakespeare Company's stage adaptation of Salman Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight's Children returns to the UK next week to embark on a two-month regional tour (See News, 6 Sep 2002).

The play received its world premiere - to mixed reviews - in January 2003 at London's Barbican Theatre, where it had a five-week season. It has since travelled to the US for engagements at the two American universities that co-produced the project - the University of Michigan's Power Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Columbia University's Apollo Theatre in New York City. The UK regional tour opens on 15 April 2003 at Aberdeen before continuing to eight further venues until 14 June 2003.

Published in 1981, Rushdie's second novel is a complex allegory combining three main tales: the turbulent history of 20th-century India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; the saga of a Muslim family; and the story of one man, Saleem Sinai, whose telepathic powers allow him to communicate with other children born at the stroke of midnight on 15 August 1947.

Midnight's Children has been adapted for the stage by Rushdie along with Simon Reade and Tim Supple, who also directs. The production is designed by Melly Still, with lighting by Tina McHugh and sound and video by John A Leonard. It's performed by a 20-strong, mainly British-Asian cast led by Zubin Varla (as Saleem)

The novel of Midnight's Children, which was awarded the "Booker of Bookers" in 1993, firmly established Rushdie's reputation as one of Britain's leading contemporary authors. His other books have included Shame, The Moor's Last Sigh, East/West, The Ground Beneath Her Feet and, most infamously, 1989's The Satanic Verses that so angered Muslims that Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini declared a "fatwah" against Rushdie.

Following Aberdeen, Midnight's Children will visit Nottingham, Birmingham, Bath, Leeds, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Salford and Glasgow.

- by Terri Paddock

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