Skios: A Novel - Couverture souple

'Farce is theatre. I wouldn t have thought it possible to whisk up a novel that is an exquisite, hilarious reflection of the stage format. Michael Frayn s Skios is just that a brilliantly plotted skirmish through events on a Greek island where an important foundation is holding its annual gathering. I loved it.'
The Spectator, Books of the Year

'Michael Frayn's brilliantly plotted Skios, set in and around a plausibly farcical cultural centre in Greece, is laugh-aloud funny, as fine as anything his mentor Wodehouse ever wrote.'
Philip French, The Observer, Books of the Year

'A witty Rube Goldberg construction of a novel... Think 'Being There' set to the staccato pacing of 'Noises Off', and hold on to your funny bones.'

'The flair for farce that gave Frayn s play Noises Off such comic brio is here uproariously let loose across the pages of a novel. A mix-up with suitcases on a Greek island plunges a pompous elderly lecturer (en route to a cultural symposium) and a raffish young character heading for an amorous assignation into a helter-skelter comedy of errors. The result is a bravura feat of nimbly plotted mishaps and misunderstandings.'
Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times, Books of the Year

'Skios, Michael Frayn's new novel, his first for 10 years, truly does make you laugh out loud.'

On the sunlit Greek island of Skios, the Fred Toppler Foundation's annual lecture is to be given by Dr Norman Wilfred, the world-famous authority on the scientific organisation of science. He turns out to be surprisingly young and charming -- not at all the intimidating figure they had been expecting. The Foundation's guests are soon eating out of his hand. So, even sooner, is Nikki, the attractive and efficient organiser.

Meanwhile, in a remote villa at the other end of the island, Nikki's old school-friend Georgie waits for the notorious chancer she has rashly agreed to go on holiday with, and who has only too characteristically failed to turn up. Trapped in the villa with her, by an unfortunate chain of misadventure, is a balding old gent called Dr Norman Wilfred, who has lost his whereabouts, his luggage, his temper and increasingly all normal sense of reality -- everything he possesses apart from the flyblown text of a well-travelled lecture on the scientific organisation of science...