This bold new imagining of Ibsen’s 19th Century classic, A Doll’s House, gives the tale a new twist.

Set in the same year of 1879, Tanika Gupta’s adaptation is set not in Norway, but Calcutta. Niru, a young Bengali woman is married to an English colonial bureaucrat, Tom.

Tom seems to loves Niru – their relationship is light and playful. He describes her as a beautiful plaything; a thing to be kept and showed off. But Niru’s past sits in all too recent memory, and a secret she has kept has been around her neck for a long time.

Just as she thinks she will be free of her anxieties, her world threatens to come tumbling down around her.

Tanika’s new re-imagining of this classic play about gender and power cleverly re-sets the story in the depths of British colonialism.

Bringing an extra lens of race, dominion and ownership so entrenched in colonial India, this production examines the forces that push on Niru to make her choice between her identity and the expectations she must live by.

This will be Rachel O’Riordan’s directorial debut as Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith.