one4review | On 21, Aug 2026

There are few performances I can think of which start with a more powerful image than a frightened prisoner strapped to the mouth of a cannon, waiting for it to fire and this is exactly how Kanpur: 1857 begins. A reconstruction of one of the brutal and humiliating public executions held by the British Empire in retaliation for the first Indian “mutiny” against years of brutal oppression and exploitation which ended in atrocities committed by both sides. Caught in the middle, the prisoner in question is a storyteller and, as a final entertainment before the bloody main event, they’re encouraged to tell their story of how they came to be there.

The show is written by and starring accomplished storyteller Niall Moorjani who delivers a fantastic and convincing performance as the scared yet still defiant rebel. Their words are beautiful, poetic and lyrical while never losing their meaning. This is heightened by the live tabla accompaniment by musician Sodhi. Moorjani is joined on stage by Jonathan Oldfield playing the British officer charged with carrying out the execution and interrogation, both hilarious and sinister, constantly interrupting, cajoling and threatening.

While Kanpur:1857 works splendidly well as a play about the realities, horrors and injustices of colonial India, it functions on so many more levels with thematic depths and breadths like an ocean and deep enough to drown in. It’s a conversation between opposing countries, opposing ideologies, opposing people, opposing views on gender, opposing sides of a story, opposing sides of a person (Moorjani themselves are Scottish/Indian). And this conversation does not bring easy answers because there are no easy answers.

Kanpur: 1857 is not just a very good play, it’s a very important one with comments on historical injustices that throw light onto contemporary ones. It is both a very personal and totally universal story of injustice and prejudice and the scars they leave. It is by parts hilarious and harrowing, chilling and charming. It’s the first show at the Fringe this year that moved me to tears and I’m not sure I can recommend it more highly than that.

*****
Reviewed by Tom

15:25

5th-16th

Above at Pleasance Courtyard