Kafka’s Dick 

by Alan Bennett

Directed by Peter Drew

It’s 1919 and Franz Kafka, the famous Czech novelist whose only wish is for post-mortal anonymity, instructs his best friend Max Brod to burn all his writings after his death. He doesn’t of course. Instead he goes on to publish all Kafka’s work and write the definitive biography … thereby instigating a whole lit-crit industry around Kafka.

We are then transported to the modern-day suburban household of Sydney, a Kafka-besotted insurance agent, and his wife Linda. Sydneyis working on his Kafka article for Small Print, the journal of insurance studies, while his neglected and frustrated wife Linda stares morosely out of the window and his elderly and confused father tries to convince the family and social services he shouldn’t be put into a home. Into their midst and from the past descends the dead but lively Brod, closely followed by a cadaverous Kafka and Kafka’s larger-than-life father, Hermann.

What is the dark secret that Kafka is terrified his father will reveal?

Will Kafka discover that Brod didn’t destroy all his work after all?

What is the nature of artistic fame and celebrity?