Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts Dermot Daly co-directed a BBC Radio 3 Drama, written by Alan Bennett, and featuring an all-star cast. The recording will be broadcast on Sunday 2 April at 8:30PM.
Kafka’s Dick was first performed in 1986, at the Royal Court. It is unusually successful at offering great entertainment with depth. Bennett’s brilliant, laugh out loud comedy also grapples with issues of fame and artistic integrity.
The central premise is simple: Franz Kafka and his friend Max Brod, returned from the dead (Kafka metamorphosing from a pet tortoise), find themselves in the suburban home of Sydney, a Kafka fanatic and his less literary minded wife, Linda. Brod spends the entire drama trying to hide the fact that he did not burn Kafka’s papers, as promised, but had them all published, thus making his friend one of the world’s best-known writers. Along the way paternal relationships are examined. Kafka and his father Herman K’s relative penis size become crucial to the plot whilst Sydney’s Father, who pops in and out of the action, is increasingly convinced that these strange visitors are assessing him for a place in a care home.
The cast, directed by Dermot Daly and Polly Thomas, includes a host of well-known names: Oscar winner Jim Broadbent (Father) who was in the original 1986 cast in a different role, acting legend Don Warrington (Herman K/God), comedy actor Mark Heap (Max Brod/Recording Angel), BAFTA winners Toby Jones (Franz Kafka) and Jason Watkins (Sydney), plus Call The Midwife actor Fenella Woolgar (Linda).
Dermot described working on this drama as a “pinch me moment.” He added:
"Working with this cast was a huge privilege and an absolute joy. I hope that the fun that was had in the making is sensed in the listening."
Naked Productions recorded this for BBC Radio 3 at London’s Sonica Studios.
