Before producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory were world famous in cinema circles as Merchant-Ivory, they made this, their second collaboration, after 1963's The Householder. It's a charming little, low-budget, independent movie, made in glowing black and white, and set in India, telling the story of a troupe of Shakespearean actors, who find the theatrical going increasingly tough. A very young Felicity Kendal impresses as Lizzie, who, while they are performing for the Maharajah (Uptal Dutt), falls for a young Indian (Shashi Kapoor). Her real-life father Geoffrey Kendal, plays her dad, the troupe's leader and founder, and a pre-cookery-star Madhur Jaffrey co-stars. Nicely nostalgic, gently humorous, acutely observed and civilised entertainment that set the pace for the Merchant-Ivory classics to come.

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