As surreal as anything the man himself produced, Alan Bennett's humorous take on the life and legacy of Franz Kafka is an exploration of fame, and the ownership of intellect, with the occasional something unexpected done with avocados.

In a normal suburban household, Sydney, a Kafka-obsessed insurance man (the excellent Bill Moulford), and his long-suffering wife Linda (Annie Bayliss), find themselves suddenly visited by Max Brod (Joe Kenneway), the should-have-been-long-dead best friend of Kafka. Brod has unfortunately urinated on the couple's tortoise, and whilst rinsing him off, Linda's whim to kiss the hapless animal prompts a metamorphosis (ah, the irony), from tortoise to "leading figure of European literature" (Josh Howard-Saunders, as Kafka). Matters are complicated further by the repeated appearances of Sydney's father (played with suberb comedy and pathos by Don Fathers), who is convinced that the increasing number of black-coated men are in fact from the health authority, and about to have him put in a home ("one puts the cat out when it's a nuisance, why not parents?"). With the appearance of Kafka's tyrannical father (Paul Harvey), the die is well and truly cast.

Kafka, you see, as his dying wish, asked Brod to burn his works. Had he complied, the name Kafka would have been less than a footnote - the faceless nobody of the incinerated Trial. Yet Brod did not burn his works, instead subsequently publishing everything: books, letters, the lot. When Kafka returns, he has no idea of his subsequent fame, and the ensuing revelations provoke serious questions concerning the ownership of thought, and the apparently perverse and contradictory desire of Kafka to be a nobody. Instead, Kafka is a household name: as Brod says, "he's an adjective in Japanese, why should he kiss you?" The play takes increasingly surreal turns as 'K' is put on trial, and fame itself becomes the object of analysis. One thing to note: when they say "it is not the end", they really aren't joking.

The production itself is competently done; acting is consistently good, and as the problems of timing and cue-bite are ironed out the comedy of the piece should flow a little smoother. In places it seems to lack conviction as to what it is: in many places, distinction between the reality and self-awareness of the play could have been clearer, and would have added to the drama and 'cleverness' of the writing. All in all, however, the production is one they can rightly be proud of. And in summary? Darling, it's positively Kafka-esque.

Bill Moulford and Annie Bayliss are outstanding as the Yorkshire couple Sydney and Linda, whose lives are temorarily disrupted by the arrival of Kafka's friend Max Brod, closely followed by Franz Kafka himself and his tyrannical father, all of them in reality long dead.

And it is the tender-hearted Linda who beguiles the despondent Franz, despite the best efforts of her insurance-broker husband, a Kafka enthusiast, to probe the secrets of his hero.

Don Fathers makes a welcome appearance as Sydney's father, a somewhat Bennett-like commonsense figure. The old man, who is resisting the couple's attempts to have him put in a home by trying to prove that he's still compos mentis, finds himself completely bemused by the apparent rewriting of literary history that is going on around him, and concludes that life as a vegetable might after all have its attractions.

Although Max has some of the best lines, Joe Kenneway resists any temptation to be merely a vehicle for Bennett's bons mots. His portrayal of the novelist fated to be known to history simply as Kafk's friend reveals both sympathy and frustration, which enables him to speak with conviction of such things as Kafka's "social ineptitude that women take for sincerity".

Under Belinda Beasley's direction this is a comfortable production which ably demonstrates that despite changes in literary fashion this play has lost none of its original appeal.

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