A mysterious and quite extravagant author creates puppets so realistic that they are like actual human beings: not only do they look like human beings, but they speak and act as people, and have all the complexity of human thought and feelings. So, are these characters real or not? They are – except from one particular. When our puppeteer chances upon a famous Franciscan friar in the fragrance of sanctity and has him attend a performance of his show, we find out that under the surface of the conventional plot of a simple love story hides a far more intense drama that grips the author, and for which he will have to ask for some ‘supernatural’ help from his new friend, the friar. The show can then start again – but that one thing that makes the characters not realistic, but real is not without its problems: a new development and a new outcome are waiting for the old author. Therein lies the Surprise…

In this almost unprecedented play (come out postumously in 1952), our author, G.K. Chesterton, deals with profound themes such as free will and the relationship between creator and creature. And he does so in a Pirandellian, and metatheatrical, way – plus, of course, a touch of his usual British humour, with puns and paradoxes. A conventional play, but at the same time a research play, a comedy and a metatheatrical tragedy – the tragedy about the link between author and character, creator and creature. A light play, able to touch with melancholy upon one of the most profound themes of human condition. In the vibrant and immediate interpretation of the young English company The Oxford Troubadours, directed by Giovanna Di Martino, the play has been a great success in Oxford, and hopes to surprise its new spectators across the Channel.