Flora Crewe, a young poet travelling India in 1930, has her portrait painted by a local artist. More than fifty years later, the artist's son visits Flora's sister in London while her would-be biographer is following a cold trail in India. The alternation of place and period in Tom Stoppard's play (based on his radio play In the Native State) makes for a rich and moving exploration of intimate lives set against one of the great shifts of history, the emergence of the Indian sub-continent from the grip of Empire.