The Empress follows a young girl Rani Das who has come overseas to be an Indian ayah to a British family, this is all during the reign of Queen Victoria during the 19 century. She comes to Britain to start a new life with only her hopes, dreams and a small bag of possessions.
The Empress has a lot of twists and turns throughout the story with Rani meeting a lot of people along the way that become integrated in the play and her story. The story mixes in the lives of the Indian ayahs, the lascars (sailors) on the ship, an Indian royal servant and an Indian Politician all navigating their ways through the Victorian times in a place different from their home.
‘It was a different insight into the Victorian times with the passionate and vulnerable side of Queen Victoria exposed through her fondness and closeness with her Indian royal servant’, stated Vimla Mathers.
The show was astonishing with the play teaching me things I never knew like the fact that the royal servant made a bond with Queen Victoria and that when she died he was shunned away from the palace because the family was embarrassed of the relationship the both of them had. It combined history, literature and drama together to make the perfect theatre production that was educational as well as entertaining. The royal servant becomes her teacher, educating her on the ways of life in India as well as providing her with lessons to learn to speak the language.
The play also took a heartbreaking turn with Rani Das falling in love aboard the boat with a Lascar but they lose contact and both go down their own paths, only to find their way back to each other again. There are a series of letters that he sends to her through his journeys across the world which we follow intently until he is back in Britain and back with Rani again.
