What is the nature of fame? The twisted perspectives on the opening scene’s backdrop set the tone for the evening.

Sydney and Linda have their ordinary lives in 1980s suburbia interrupted when the acclaimed author Franz Kafka arrives on their doorstep.

The trouble is, Kafka died more than 60 years ago.

He is joined by his best friend Max Brod and later his father, Hermann, both also long-dead.

In this surreal comedy, playwright Alan Bennett questions the nature of celebrity.

Kafka would be unknown if Brod had carried out his friend’s instructions and burned his works after his death, the further result being that 15,000 books would not have been written about him.

Sydney has studied Kafka and is a fan, but has not read his stories.

Celebrity culture, where you can be famous for being famous, not for what you do, is put on trial.

The amusing side story of Sydney’s father trying to avoid a retirement home backs up the Kafkaesque themes as he finds himself living in a circular nightmare where the rules keep changing.

Along with the traditional Bennett touches – references to mother’s eczema, and kiwi fruit and mandarin slices as the height of sophistication – the cast are ensemble players, with no leading part.

However, Daniel Weyman and Elliot Levey are strong as the vaudeville double act, Kafka and Brod.

Without giving anything away, the ending is totally unexpected.

Bennett carries through with his distortion of reality but to me it is incongruous and does not add anything except a further sense of the bizarre.

I enjoyed this production but it’s not going to set the world on fire.

It was a pleasant way to spend an evening rather than great entertainment.

But that’s Bennett’s style for me. There were others in the audience who seemed to find it hilarious.

As for the small matter of the play’s title? It is quite insignificant really.