Could it be Derek!

Browsing through the current issue of the London Review of Books, I come across the following, in a review by Tony Wood of Today I Wrote Nothing: The Selected Writings of Daniil Kharms:

Perhaps the most brilliant piece in ‘Sluchai’ is the pseudo-play ‘Pushkin and Gogol’. Gogol falls onto the stage from behind the curtain and lies still; Pushkin enters, trips over Gogol and falls, crying: ‘What the devil! Could it be Gogol!’ Now Gogol gets up, walks and immediately trips over Pushkin, who gets up again, only to trip over Gogol. And so on until the two exit the stage, each still exclaiming his annoyance at tripping over the other.

I find myself giggling at the thought of an adaptation of this playlet featuring not Pushkin and Gogol but our own Naipaul and Walcott....