Picasso's Desire Caught By the Tail

Pablo Picasso was probably the greatest painter of the twentieth century, but he was also a writer of poetry and plays.

Desire Caught by the Tail, a strange surrealist comedy, is the best known of his works. Written in 1942 during the German occupation of Paris, the play's preoccupation with food and the cold reflects conditions in France at the time. Its first private performance was directed by Albert Camus and boasted Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Raymond Queneau among its cast.

The play is discussed by John Calder and extracts are read by actors Henry Woolf, Peter Pacey and Colette Kelly.