Tutorial 4

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E. M. Forster

The Novel tells a story

The English storm the platform in the picture above (from a production of the dramatisation by Santha Rama Rau - basis for the later film by David Lean).

Professor Don Smith, who was at the first performance of the play, tells me that there were a lot of complaints by reviewers afterwards about the "impossibility" of the scene where all the English characters move out of the body of the courtroom to sit up on a level with the judge. They reiterated the old complaint that Forster simply didn't know the Anglo-Indians.

He did know them. He just didn't like them. The scene is (of course) in the novel.

Don said it was fascinating to see Forster sitting there, at the front of the hall, hunched in his chair, saying nothing. Difficult to tell if he enjoyed the show or not.

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Contact details for the stage two and stage three student representatives for 220/356 are now available here.