The acclaimed non-fiction book by New Yorker staff writer Katherine Boo is the raw material of this energetic and often spellbinding production of an adaptation by David Hare, the first National Theatre show with an entirely Asian cast.
The title oozes irony: "Beautiful Forever" is the slogan of luxury floor tiles advertised on hoardings that obscure from view the play's setting - Annawadi, the "sumpy plug of a slum" under the airport flight path in Mumbai where Boo documented daily life for three years. Sorting and recycling rubbish is the main industry and "don't litter" signs are frowned on ("What sort of message does that send?" one character fumes).
The book, a quietly angry piece of social-realist reportage, succeeded largely because it breathed individual life into its cast of characters. letting them be more than cookie-cutter illustrations of the writer's themes. Hare's fast and often very funny script extends this process: there are no noble poor here, but only people at the bottom of the pile in a globalised world rife with official indifference and corruption.
