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ITV comedy series "Mumbai Calling" in 2009 dealt with the culture clash of UK
managers meeting Indian call centres. Here, it is an Indian staff employed by
America to collect American debts, and neither side is laughing. The pressures
exerted, and the pressures exerted upon the exerters cause the hapless young
staff to almost mentally fuse with their prey. Already asked to be "Western,"
they adopt the anxieties of those they speak to and build their fantasies around
them.
John Napier's set manages to give the play the atmosphere it needs more
quickly than the writing, and it is to the actors credit that they eventually
get us to care about their characters and dilemmas despite undertaking a
distasteful job.
Without much in the way of history for each character, it is kept very much
in the present and as such we miss out on one dimension of the drama. Anupama
Chandrasekhar is inventive, but there isn't really enough to sustain the entire
evening. It isn't a bad play - just perhaps we'd like more about the people in
the call centre, which is the point of it all.
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