When it comes to cruel and unusual punishment, it is hard to think of anything more grizzly than that meted out by the British army in Kanpur (then anglicised as Cawnpore) in retribution for the 19th-century Indian uprising against colonial occupation. Having been rounded up, each ringleader was tied to the mouth of a cannon. Before the eyes of the public, the weapon was fired.
To emphasise the point, a cannon sits on stage in Kanpur: 1857 – surely the largest prop at the fringe – positioned threateningly behind Niall Moorjani, who plays a storyteller facing their final hour, trying to come up with a narrative that makes sense of their awful predicament. How did someone who grew up peacefully on the banks of the Ganges, who was captivated by poetry and the beauty of the spoken word, end up in this situation?
