Nirjay Mahindru's witty first play takes its audience on a thrilling flight of fantasy to India. As his Queen gives birth to an heir, King Mandragora's kingdom is plagued by a terrifying series of omens. Flying fish and fiery peacocks can be explained but who are the alien creatures with chalky white skin and what do they want? This new play creates a vivid world, populated by kings, soothsayers and clowns, threatened in a clash between old and new civilisations. Mandragora is the most inventive new play since Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children hit the bookshops, audaciously running rings round the accepted western view of the early encounters between the English and Indians.
