Midnight's Children

Synopsis

Midnight's Children is a complex work combining three main tales: the turbulent history of twentieth-century India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: the saga of a Muslim family: the story of one man, Saleem Sinai, whose telepathic powers allow him to communicate with other children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15 1947.

Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (195.217.253.5) - 17 February 2003:

This was a show that promised much but failed to deliver - or, to be more accurate, delivered rather a lot more than was necessary. At around 3.5 hours in length, this is longer than an average Bollywood movie, which it at times resembled. I enjoyed the first half, which made good use of stage setting, the screen hanging at the back which was projected with various visuals, the music, and so on. But in my opinion the second half let the whole thing down. It dragged on interminably, it descended into mad fantasy - what was going on? who were the moth-eaten circus/performer people? what did that have to do with the development of the plot? As buttocks became more and more numb, the storyline became more and more protracted and diverged ever further from the essential thread. The stage adaptors should have cut much of this second half material and left the play at 2.5 hours maximum - for me, all the interest that had been built up in the first act was completely demolished by the time I left the theatre at the end of the turgid second act, and I went away thinking how much more pleasant my evening would have been if I'd decided to leave the theatre at the midway point. I'm not sure if the indulgence and silliness and fantasy overload in the second half is present in the book, too - but either way, I don't think the RSC have done themselves any favours by keeping it in....

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