A minor framing character in Richard Attenborough’s 1982 movie Gandhi is Nathuram Godse, a ­tailor-turned-terrorist who shoots Ben Kingsley’s architect of Indian independence in the opening scenes and then, after a three-hour biographical flashback of Gandhi’s career, is seen joining the Hindu nationalist conspiracy that accused Gandhi of giving too much ground to India’s Muslim population during the partition of India and Pakistan.

The Father and the Assassin
National theatre, London

A minor framing character in Richard Attenborough’s 1982 movie Gandhi is Nathuram Godse, a ­tailor-turned-terrorist who shoots Ben Kingsley’s architect of Indian independence in the opening scenes and then, after a three-hour biographical flashback of Gandhi’s career, is seen joining the Hindu nationalist conspiracy that accused Gandhi of giving too much ground to India’s Muslim population during the partition of India and Pakistan.

Now Godse takes centre stage in The Father and the Assassin, a new play by Anupama Chandrasekhar, whose earlier work includes When the Crows Visit, a brilliant Indian relocation of Ibsen’s Ghosts, which had the same director, Indhu Rubasingham.

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