1 00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:08,050 David, thank you so much for being willing to talk about Kafka today. 2 00:00:08,100 --> 00:00:12,339 Um, I know you're not a Kafka expert, but you are someone who knows a lot about humour, 3 00:00:12,340 --> 00:00:20,620 and it seems to me that one of the really interesting things about Kafka is he's associated with nightmare and dark and Kafkaesque and so on. 4 00:00:20,620 --> 00:00:27,070 But actually the texts have a lot of comedy and a lot of humour, or at least one can read them like that. 5 00:00:27,490 --> 00:00:32,260 And I was hoping that we might tease out some of those things. Does that strike a chord with you at all? 6 00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:38,770 Well, the thing is that you just have to blink with Kafka and it's clearly comic. 7 00:00:39,190 --> 00:00:44,440 I mean, metamorphosis being the most obvious example, right? Uh, but you can imagine. 8 00:00:45,370 --> 00:00:49,480 Let's imagine, uh, Gregor Samsa with the face of David Mitchell. 9 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:57,070 Right? Which is not impossible. Right? He's a kind of nerdy guy who's, you know, anxious about his work and all the rest of it. 10 00:00:57,460 --> 00:01:05,890 And, uh, I can see a sketch quite easily, actually, on is not on anymore, but Mitchell and Webb's sketch show in which, 11 00:01:06,340 --> 00:01:10,180 you know, let's say he's living with Robert Webb, which is slightly odd because that's more peep show. 12 00:01:10,180 --> 00:01:14,710 But anyway, Robert Webb comes into David Mitchell's bedroom and he's been turned into a massive beetle. 13 00:01:15,190 --> 00:01:20,800 And. Well, because what I tell you, what makes it comic? I mean, I think you can see that as a surreal sketch, definitely. 14 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:25,329 But what makes it comic is that if I was writing that sketch, I would say, 15 00:01:25,330 --> 00:01:28,990 okay, well, the thing is that I want the character not to be just screaming, 16 00:01:29,380 --> 00:01:33,580 which is what you would actually do, but I want him to be thinking, how will I get my train to work now? 17 00:01:33,670 --> 00:01:35,709 And oh, I'm sort of on the wrong way out now. 18 00:01:35,710 --> 00:01:42,310 How do I turn around and like, what do I do to just to live my life now that I'm, oh, bloody [INAUDIBLE], an enormous beetle. 19 00:01:42,310 --> 00:01:48,730 And that is actually the tone of much of metamorphosis. It's kind of like, oh, now I have to deal with this now. 20 00:01:49,090 --> 00:01:51,760 Now, obviously built into it. 21 00:01:51,760 --> 00:01:59,020 Uh, lots and lots of sort of metaphor, whatever you want to put it about alienation, about, you know, you might imagine that Kafka, uh, 22 00:01:59,170 --> 00:02:05,620 as a Jew, as someone who felt very much sort of not comfortable in general in his life, but within the world of Prague at the time. 23 00:02:05,740 --> 00:02:14,140 Yeah, it's that as well. But there is definitely a sense in which there's a deadpan quality to the way that Gregor Samsa reacts to being a beetle, 24 00:02:14,500 --> 00:02:17,890 which feels to me comic as much as it is a riffic. 25 00:02:18,550 --> 00:02:24,550 I love the idea of David Mitchell as that goes on and I thought will stay with me, unfortunately now forever. 26 00:02:24,940 --> 00:02:28,920 Um, uh, I completely get what you're saying. 27 00:02:28,930 --> 00:02:36,850 I mean, and actually, humour comes, doesn't it, from a kind of discrepancy between two things rubbing up alongside each other. 28 00:02:37,180 --> 00:02:42,040 Um, the, uh, contradictions or, and that can be the source of terror. 29 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,710 But it can also, as you say, actually, it's that double take, isn't it? 30 00:02:45,730 --> 00:02:50,770 Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, uh, I think it's in metamorphosis. 31 00:02:50,770 --> 00:02:56,829 I think it's principally the way the reaction at the start and and the reaction of the family around him, 32 00:02:56,830 --> 00:03:02,310 the sort of like, oh, God, this is really annoying. Gregor turned into a beetle towards the end of it. 33 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:07,330 It does get really grim. I think my memory is like there's a bit where and it's sort of quite funny as well, 34 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:12,820 but Olaf will get stuck in his sort of carapace and that sort of leads to him sort of rotting. 35 00:03:12,820 --> 00:03:16,290 And that obviously is pretty grim. So there's something funny about that. 36 00:03:16,290 --> 00:03:22,869 But like, you know, just an apple, uh, that happening to I mean, the, the obvious other, uh, sort of, um, 37 00:03:22,870 --> 00:03:31,729 arena or whatever idea that I think Kafka creates in the mind is dreams, uh, is sort of because think the trial is similar to that as well. 38 00:03:31,730 --> 00:03:40,540 The anxiety dreams, uh, and the trial is, uh, very much I think, that idea of, like, I don't really know what's going on, but everything seems normal. 39 00:03:40,990 --> 00:03:45,220 Everything seems normal. But something is weird, I thought, going on, and I can't find the thing I meant to find. 40 00:03:45,370 --> 00:03:49,300 And I don't know what exactly is happening to me. And that seems to be a door here that John altered, but it doesn't. 41 00:03:49,480 --> 00:03:52,299 And obviously that's that's anxiety dreams. But they're also fun. 42 00:03:52,300 --> 00:03:58,750 It I think, you know, dreams are often your brain playing practical jokes on yourself, I think, 43 00:03:58,870 --> 00:04:05,290 which is why dreams often have a comic quality to them where you think like, oh no, what am I doing in my school library without my pencil? 44 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:07,360 You know what I mean? It's like night like. 45 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:15,939 And I think that that really, to use a word that's used a lot now, uh, Kafka, uh, hovers a lot of time in a liminal space. 46 00:04:15,940 --> 00:04:21,130 I've used the phrase liminal space, uh, between kind of comedy and anxiety dream. 47 00:04:21,700 --> 00:04:26,909 That seems to me to be almost where he sort of blackly comic ideas and and anxiety dream. 48 00:04:26,910 --> 00:04:30,970 And when I read Kafka, I feel quite anxious. But I also I'm on the edge of laughter. 49 00:04:31,420 --> 00:04:42,129 Yeah. And maybe it's that feeling of unsettled mist that keeps readers coming back, in a sense, in that there isn't a sort of easy answer. 50 00:04:42,130 --> 00:04:45,280 You don't go away with a single kind of feeling or a single, uh, 51 00:04:45,940 --> 00:04:52,420 understanding that you're you feel a kind of demand to kind of, uh, interpret as well. 52 00:04:53,050 --> 00:05:01,390 Yeah, I think so. I mean, the, the point in time that he's writing surrealism is sort of happening, uh, in, in, uh, a surrealism is pretty funny. 53 00:05:01,390 --> 00:05:07,710 But I think if one's immediate reaction. Then sort of the culture's immediate reaction to surrealism was that it was terrifying. 54 00:05:07,890 --> 00:05:09,930 When Dali does Ocean and Lou. 55 00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:16,080 Uh, its initial reaction because it seems to have sort of slightly horrific images, like a razor blade coming towards an eye or whatever. 56 00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:22,980 It's that it's horrific, but at the same time, it's juxtaposing a lot of very sort of like, so these, these don't get together. 57 00:05:23,010 --> 00:05:30,270 The what's happening is incongruity is incongruity being presented to you in a way that is destabilising because you think, 58 00:05:30,270 --> 00:05:33,899 well, this doesn't make sense. These things don't go together in a narrative, ordinary life. 59 00:05:33,900 --> 00:05:40,500 But that's what comedy often is comedy. I was saying this last night, I do a show called trolls, not the Dolls is one of three shows I'm doing. 60 00:05:40,860 --> 00:05:48,180 Uh, at the moment I'm recording all my three Stand-Up shows, and the one about trolls is about saying how people on social media, 61 00:05:48,450 --> 00:05:52,709 uh, want to be very literal because they're very worried on social media about saying the wrong thing. 62 00:05:52,710 --> 00:05:56,460 But comedy is often about deliberately saying the wrong thing, isn't it? 63 00:05:56,730 --> 00:06:03,690 So that you laugh because you think, well, that's not true, that's not right or whatever, and it's a hop, skip and a jump between there and, you know, 64 00:06:03,690 --> 00:06:09,510 someone waking up as a beetle or someone being charged with a crime that they feel is never explained to them, 65 00:06:09,840 --> 00:06:12,960 because that is also wrongness has entered my life. 66 00:06:13,770 --> 00:06:18,660 Yeah. And the wrongness often enters the lives of his protagonists when they wake up. 67 00:06:19,110 --> 00:06:25,769 I think, you know, so the beginning of the trial is him ringing for for his his breakfast in the morning or metamorphosis. 68 00:06:25,770 --> 00:06:31,470 Gregor wakes up from an easy dream. So it's almost like waking up into a dream, if you like. 69 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:35,009 Yeah, that's a really good point. I forgotten about the trial, but he's. 70 00:06:35,010 --> 00:06:39,330 Yes, it's very clear at the start of metamorphosis, which is waking from a nightmare. 71 00:06:39,360 --> 00:06:42,929 The uneasy dreams he discover that he was in hunger. 72 00:06:42,930 --> 00:06:47,700 Horror, I think is the. Is that correct? Um, anyway, he was a big, monstrous insect. 73 00:06:47,910 --> 00:06:55,709 Uh, and, yeah, it's a really apparent point, but yes, it's like the dream is still going on, but it's not. 74 00:06:55,710 --> 00:06:56,490 It's in your real life. 75 00:06:56,490 --> 00:07:03,719 And obviously when you have dreams, sometimes when you have very powerful dreams, you can think me dreaming or am I now actually living my life? 76 00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:07,020 And something's going really wrong. Uh, and I think I think Kafka was. 77 00:07:07,020 --> 00:07:15,210 Yeah. Very good. Uh, exploiting that. Uh, it's, it's interesting thing, actually, because in dreams, you're aware of the absurdity. 78 00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:18,570 I don't know that I've ever laughed during a dream. 79 00:07:18,810 --> 00:07:22,140 I sometimes laugh when I'm explaining it in real life afterwards. 80 00:07:22,500 --> 00:07:27,870 So, you know, um, I that, like, dreams about myself. 81 00:07:27,880 --> 00:07:32,100 I want to hear about your dreams. But sometimes they are hilarious. But in a dream, I'm not sure. 82 00:07:32,100 --> 00:07:35,159 I'm just raising this an issue. Anyone sort of laughs very often. 83 00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:41,700 Actually. I have an anxiety dream quite often, which is that I'm on stage and I completely can't remember any of my material. 84 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:48,350 And so no one's laughing. Uh, that that's quite often, uh, I think academics have that dream to write. 85 00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:54,660 Yeah, I think it's quite a common thing, isn't it? Um, I wanted to pick up something else. 86 00:07:54,660 --> 00:08:01,590 I mean, just at the moment, uh, I've been talking, for example, about the kind of, uh, Royal Ballet version of metamorphosis. 87 00:08:02,010 --> 00:08:07,800 Um, and also there's a production on at the moment, uh, let me say dramatic version. 88 00:08:08,070 --> 00:08:14,880 And both of those really make a great deal out of bodily, um, kind of gestural humour. 89 00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:16,649 And it's not just laid onto Kafka. 90 00:08:16,650 --> 00:08:25,590 I think it's actually, uh, in a lot of the texts, um, a kind of real fascination with bodily awkwardness or, uh, bodily inappropriateness. 91 00:08:25,950 --> 00:08:31,860 Um, and I'm wondering, you know, the comedy of gesture, the comedy of movement, the comedy of the body. 92 00:08:32,010 --> 00:08:38,880 Is that something you sort of soaring, Kafka, or is that something that you kind of, you know, it would be important in, in thinking about this. 93 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:42,960 Yeah. Well, the word you'll, you're, you're, you're moving towards is slapstick. 94 00:08:43,230 --> 00:08:46,620 Uh, you know, uh, physical comedy is slapstick again, 95 00:08:46,620 --> 00:08:52,769 something that was interestingly just starting to be very around because of silent film around the time that Kafka was writing, 96 00:08:52,770 --> 00:08:57,389 that was all comedy at the time, was essentially slapstick and the greatest slapstick comedians, you know, 97 00:08:57,390 --> 00:09:04,230 Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and others, uh, you know, they were creating an idea that this is what comedy is. 98 00:09:04,230 --> 00:09:11,310 There's often quite kind of like involving, again, a kind of situation where the character may not understand how he's ended up in this position, 99 00:09:11,550 --> 00:09:14,010 but it's sort of like both terrifying and hilarious. 100 00:09:14,460 --> 00:09:19,950 The obvious example of being with Buster Keaton, uh, a house falls on him, uh, and somehow he survives it. 101 00:09:19,950 --> 00:09:23,399 And that's a very dreamlike experience. And he's deadpan, right? 102 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:27,330 He's deadpan, as it happens, but it's a great moment of physical comedy. It's also terrifying, right? 103 00:09:27,510 --> 00:09:33,479 It's a brilliant example, the house falling on Buster Keaton of funny and terrifying and dreamlike all, all in one go. 104 00:09:33,480 --> 00:09:36,690 But I think you're right that you can see that in Kafka. 105 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:39,450 You can see that in metamorphosis, in the sort of. 106 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:45,070 It's a long description, actually, right at the start, just after he wakes up of him trying to turn over, uh, 107 00:09:45,090 --> 00:09:50,129 and you have in your mind an idea of a wooden house or a beetle, like how they often do try to turn over, 108 00:09:50,130 --> 00:09:54,270 but then he goes right into the mind of someone who trying to do this in a way that is 109 00:09:54,870 --> 00:09:58,590 both terrifying in terms of its focus on what it would feel like to be in that position, 110 00:09:58,740 --> 00:10:03,630 but also comic, because someone who's fallen over and who is trying to flip themselves. 111 00:10:04,070 --> 00:10:06,860 Like, imagine a tortoise doing that. It's interesting, isn't it? 112 00:10:07,160 --> 00:10:15,450 Actually, sorry to race around, but in any Malcolm A book I wrote a children's book, uh, about, uh, a boy who turns into lots of. 113 00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:19,790 I never thought about the Kafka elements of it, but I wrote it's about a boy who doesn't like animals. 114 00:10:20,030 --> 00:10:25,730 Then he goes to a farm on a school trip and ends up turning into many different animals, and one of them is a tortoise. 115 00:10:25,940 --> 00:10:30,169 And there's a whole section which I've just realised, in which he ends up on his back, 116 00:10:30,170 --> 00:10:33,590 and other tortoises have to try and help him flip over to the right side. 117 00:10:33,590 --> 00:10:38,190 And I promise you that is funny. Kids laugh at it, but it's very similar, 118 00:10:38,220 --> 00:10:43,580 maybe even subconsciously influenced by what happens to Gregor Samsa in a way that's so interesting, isn't it? 119 00:10:43,700 --> 00:10:49,820 Because it's the beetle. It's the beetle that makes it horrific because we have a terror of insects. 120 00:10:50,150 --> 00:10:55,610 Once it's a tortoise, it's not that far away, and you'll often see them on their backs and they have to flip over. 121 00:10:55,610 --> 00:10:59,360 It's sort of comic, isn't it? Yeah. No, that's that's completely right. 122 00:10:59,370 --> 00:11:03,230 You're reminding me that the, um, I think Nabokov wrote about, you know, 123 00:11:03,740 --> 00:11:08,930 the horror of Kafka because this beetle represents everything that's repulsive. 124 00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:13,790 Um, whereas, of course, you know, a tortoise is domesticated. 125 00:11:13,790 --> 00:11:19,960 You know, it's something here, isn't it? Whereas the Hoya, which, you know, you're quite right to point out, means the sort of monstrosity. 126 00:11:20,270 --> 00:11:23,420 You know, Kafka never specifies that it is an insect. 127 00:11:23,810 --> 00:11:27,350 Um, vermin. Really. It's they it's the word uncreative. 128 00:11:27,770 --> 00:11:30,770 Um, and he takes pains never to illustrate it. 129 00:11:30,770 --> 00:11:34,850 But it what that gap leaves is a gap for horror, actually. 130 00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:40,279 Um, yeah. The horror is also quite comic. You know, there is actually a whole genre called comedy. 131 00:11:40,280 --> 00:11:44,690 Horror and horror is mainly absurd, you know, at the same time as it is terrifying. 132 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:50,210 Um, I actually went to Prague. So, you know, I'm very much speaking in this interview is not a Kafka expert. 133 00:11:50,210 --> 00:11:51,200 Can I be clear about that? 134 00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:57,950 But I did, uh, just because I was asked to buy a radio three, I think they do a thing called Archive Hour, and they asked me and just. 135 00:11:57,950 --> 00:12:04,099 There's a brilliantly interesting thing to do to go to Prague and talk about metaphor more focuses principally from the point of view of, 136 00:12:04,100 --> 00:12:10,819 um, the many. What are they called? Entomologists? Uh, the many sort of beetles and insect experts. 137 00:12:10,820 --> 00:12:14,209 That is the whole culture in Prague, almost all culture around the world. There are many entomologists. 138 00:12:14,210 --> 00:12:20,900 But we actually went to a fair, uh, in Prague, where they had these glass glass cases with full of beetles. 139 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:25,580 And I was trying to say, which one of those is Gregor Samsa? What do you think you're from Prague. 140 00:12:25,580 --> 00:12:29,480 Your Czech. You will know Kafka because there's cafes in Prague, so named after Kafka. 141 00:12:29,750 --> 00:12:34,640 And and they would say, well, I think it's probably this one and it might be that one. Uh, and that was what the program was about. 142 00:12:34,670 --> 00:12:37,700 We actually also spoke to Ed. Is it Conway? 143 00:12:37,700 --> 00:12:40,880 Who is the dancer who did it first? 144 00:12:40,970 --> 00:12:48,530 It was Ed Watson. Thank you. We also went to speak to Ed Watson, and he showed me his moves essentially to be, 145 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:54,290 uh, Gregor Samsa or uh, and yeah, the physicality of it is really extreme. 146 00:12:54,530 --> 00:13:00,110 I mean, it was it was very it was pretty disturbing when he was doing it, as well as being kind of beautiful because it integrated modern dance. 147 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:03,620 I wouldn't have said that was that comic. Um, but maybe it was. 148 00:13:03,620 --> 00:13:12,409 Maybe it also was. I mean, as you say, it's such a blink of an eye that something, uh, particular with the body is disturbing and horrific. 149 00:13:12,410 --> 00:13:17,600 And then it's funny. Yeah, it's kind of release. I think that absolutely makes sense to me. 150 00:13:17,750 --> 00:13:19,520 Um, you mentioned Buster Keaton, 151 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:25,910 and I guess I just wanted to think about the kind of influences that might have been around or that we could perhaps see in Kafka, 152 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:33,229 even if there isn't a sort of straight forward influence. Um, so Charlie Chaplin, as you said, um, also there were sort of, um, cartoons. 153 00:13:33,230 --> 00:13:38,540 There's a really interesting piece by Peter Cooper in the New York Times, uh, a couple of years ago, 154 00:13:38,540 --> 00:13:44,360 finding the Funny in Kafka, where he drew links with cartoons, actually, in America that Kafka would never have known. 155 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:47,900 Um, and Kafka was very interested in Yiddish theatre as well. 156 00:13:47,930 --> 00:13:54,860 Um, and I'm wondering whether you see those sorts of visual things in Kafka. 157 00:13:55,220 --> 00:13:58,970 Uh, well, I think the Yiddish theatre, as far as I know, I'm not an expert on that either. 158 00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:07,280 Um, was very, very physical and very visual and, um, depictions like cartoons, uh, within Yiddish culture, uh, 159 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:14,120 you know, of the book, uh, and of other sort of, you know, Jewish figures of myth tend to be very, very big. 160 00:14:14,150 --> 00:14:19,760 I mean, like in any culture, you know, they tend to be quite grotesque and big and physical. 161 00:14:19,760 --> 00:14:27,110 And obviously, you know, they're actually films of the Yiddish films at the time and, uh, that they're just sort of mental, to be honest. 162 00:14:27,140 --> 00:14:32,210 You just be like, wow, they're all of, uh, these actors doing very, very big physical movements. 163 00:14:32,450 --> 00:14:40,910 Uh, I, I'm interested in, obviously, and I don't know what the latest thinking is, is how much Kafka, uh, you know, felt Jewish, as it were, 164 00:14:41,030 --> 00:14:45,079 and particularly obviously, where how his alienation and how things like, uh, 165 00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:50,479 metamorphoses are metaphors of feeling like an outsider within Czech society. 166 00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:58,310 I mean, I think some of it is about being Jewish, and some of it is that by being Kafka, you know, being being kind of uncomfortable in his own skin. 167 00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:03,260 So let me create a skin which I'm very uncomfortable in, or a character with a skin that I'm very uncomfortable in. 168 00:15:03,530 --> 00:15:11,120 Some of that will be about being Jewish. Um, and some of it will be about, you know, uh, something that Kafka was not to know about because he died, 169 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:15,350 but about the fact that there's a growing anti-Semitism in Europe at that time. 170 00:15:15,620 --> 00:15:23,659 And, yes, I mean, I think, um, obviously, you know, not point forward, but there was already a sort of anti-Semitic, uh, you know, atmosphere, um, 171 00:15:23,660 --> 00:15:31,700 and, you know, he was a kind of double minority because he was Jewish in Prague, but he was also German speaking in a Czech speaking environment. 172 00:15:31,700 --> 00:15:37,730 So there are sort of layers and as you say, then there's this, there's the goodness of it all is, uh, yeah, yeah. 173 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:43,100 I think the Kafka is what I always what I always think this sounds like very, very like I think about this all the time and I don't. 174 00:15:43,100 --> 00:15:50,240 But I was reading about Proust, uh, and I don't know how much of a relationship there is, but they both seem to me to be these kind of slightly, 175 00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:57,799 uh, what we probably consider to be on the spectrum now, men, uh, sort of at odds with themselves, possibly at odds with their sexuality. 176 00:15:57,800 --> 00:16:02,690 I mean, certainly with perused. I'm not sure about Kafka. Uh, but, you know, they're not comfortable in their own skin. 177 00:16:02,690 --> 00:16:08,060 So what they do instead is they retreat into sort of writing spaces, and they write out their discomfort, 178 00:16:08,180 --> 00:16:11,300 which both in Priest and Kafka definitely have a comic element to it. 179 00:16:11,840 --> 00:16:16,070 Right? I think people approach both those two is thinking, well, they're great big writers, and, 180 00:16:16,310 --> 00:16:19,910 you know, they're going to be, in the one case, very grand, in the other case very dark. 181 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:26,420 But there's comedy in both of them, because I think that the mind will go there when it's trying to describe discomfort. 182 00:16:27,150 --> 00:16:30,530 Sounds like you talking about comics as well. Well, how do you mean? 183 00:16:30,530 --> 00:16:37,579 Like comedians? Yeah, comedians all the time, I think I think that I mean, I'm actually not very uncomfortable in my own skin. 184 00:16:37,580 --> 00:16:44,239 I'm some of the old, uh, as a comic from that point of view. But what I am is I certainly see myself as someone who, uh, you know, 185 00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:50,540 needs to express himself in sort of quite, uh, direct and sometimes slightly mad ways. 186 00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,170 And I don't exactly know where that comes from. I have weird charges I sort of do with that. 187 00:16:54,470 --> 00:17:00,980 Uh, and that is something which, you know, the self-expression that allows you to say, okay, 188 00:17:00,980 --> 00:17:05,469 I've got these this slightly odd take on the world, uh, and I need to find ways doing it. 189 00:17:05,470 --> 00:17:10,190 Yeah. Comedy is that, uh, I don't know if Kafka could have been a stand up. 190 00:17:10,340 --> 00:17:14,690 That feels to me unlikely, because he feels to me like quite a shy man, isn't it? 191 00:17:14,810 --> 00:17:21,440 I mean, not that some community is all shy, by the way. He was right. But although he laughed a lot, apparently reading his stories, so did he. 192 00:17:21,710 --> 00:17:23,410 Yeah, yeah. Do you think that's really interesting? 193 00:17:23,420 --> 00:17:31,370 I mean, I wonder if in doing this, you know, you will bring people to Kafka more because I think that is the thing is that I think when I was younger, 194 00:17:31,970 --> 00:17:35,810 he sort of sat with camera and a few others, and the camera is quite funny, I think. 195 00:17:35,810 --> 00:17:40,130 But but a few others, uh, in terms of like, oh yeah, these are the pretentious ones. 196 00:17:40,370 --> 00:17:46,399 These are the ones that I will refer to as a sort of 19 year old to show that I'm dark and important and gothic and blah, 197 00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:51,889 blah, blah, uh, whereas in fact, you know, it would be more interesting to say, yeah, he probably is all those things. 198 00:17:51,890 --> 00:17:56,840 But also, he's funny, you know, it's a way of like opening up Kafka, I think, well, that would be great. 199 00:17:56,840 --> 00:18:01,070 If we could do that with this. I'd be really pleased. David Baddiel, thank you very much indeed. 200 00:18:01,280 --> 00:18:02,030 Thank you Karen.