Stage Directions by Michael Frayn

"Most playwrights start young when they are full of passion and certainty," Michael Frayn asserts in the introduction to this collection of essays he has written over the years to accompany his own work. His own first play, however, was not produced until he was 36 - a delay he puts down to "early failure". But Frayn's passion is never in doubt. He might have spent his younger days sneering at the theatre following the humiliation of his unsuccessful Footlights May Week revue, but he was drawn back "like the atheist who comes to mock but stays to pray". Whether discussing the postwar German politics explored in Democracy or why "Waffles" is a poor translation of Telegin's nickname in Uncle Vanya, he always ensures his erudition is displayed to entertaining advantage. It is his understanding of the odd chemical reactions that can occur between audience and actors that is most telling, however. He may no longer be the schoolboy regaling his family with conjuring tricks, as described in the introduction to his first volume of plays, but his love of magic remains.