That’s the rumor about the playwright, at least. “What seems to have happened is that Frayn, asked by a reporter the traditional question as to what he was writing at the moment, replied with an absolute honesty that honours both his old NUJ card and his hobby of philo- sophy: nothing.” Not to worry, though. “A few weeks on, he is about to begin a screenplay of Headlong, his 1999 novel about an art-theft, but has no inklings of new books or plays, and is too scrupulous or superstitious to assume that they will come.”