Went to see The Elephant Vanishes at the Barbican on Thursday night. Absolutely brilliant. Probably the best thing I’ve ever seen on stage in London. Mindblowing use of movement, video and sound to recreate Murikami’s short stories. I was lucky because we chose the night when Simon McBurney (the director) was doing a talk after the show — also really interesting. He said something that I didn’t know but which makes sense — that Murikami translated Ray Carver’s short stories into Japanese. Carver is one of my favourite authors and as I was sitting through the show I was thinking that there were similarities with the atmosphere that Carver creates in many of his short stories. Anyway, highly recommended if you’re in London town.