lightning strikes

Simon Callow reviews Michael Frayn's essays on theatre and quotes the playwright's take on audiences:

'I sometimes feel that the skill of the audience is not sufficiently recognised.'

When it comes to the great moments in the theatre, Frayn writes:

'these epiphanies are not isolated events, of course. The charge builds and builds before the lightning strikes; and the particles in which the electricity is stored are the audience.'

Callow adds:

'which is as good an account of what actually happens in a theatre as I have ever read.'