****
When tepid vintage comedies from the likes of Wodehouse remain so lauded, it's a shame that more imaginative works like Richardson's surrealist gothic sports horror comedy classic fell through the canonical cracks. Each account of witch shooting, clock boxing and more laid-back leisure pursuits such as plant drama (not for the impatient) serves to prise open the reader's awareness a little more, so that when the full-scale chess apocalypse arrives, it's almost comprehensible.
Fave: 'A Quiet Game of Chess'
1957 / Ebook / 122 pages / Ireland
**
Some plays work well on the page, where you can mull over the verse at your own pace. But when it's a minimalist play that largely relies on comic timing and chemistry, followed by an entirely visual silent piece, it didn't take long to realise I'd made a huge mistake.
2000 / Ebook / 32 pages / Australia
****
This junior Kafka is better than any Kafka. It didn't dazzle me like Tan's The Arrival did, but I would have been well into it as a boy. What are? Why are? That's a keeper.
2005 / Ebook / 120 pages / USA
***
The series was clever, groundbreaking and resonant enough to earn a stuffy academic analysis, but this is mainly just someone summarising and categorising the jokes (and sometimes getting things wrong). Monty Python described matter-of-factly is still funny though.
Rhys Hughes, Engelbrecht Again!
1999-2000 (collected 2008) / Ebook / 288 pages / UK***
A fanfic sequel I didn't really need, the influence of Richardson's Engelbrechts on the author's style was clear when reading the originals, but he gets a bit carried away with the boundary-pushing as his cumulative story cycle gains meta momentum and the exploits increasingly drag. It was quite annoying even as a fan, so I don't know how other readers would fare.
Fave: 'Surfing the Solar Wind'
