I went to see The Elephant Vanishes at the Barbican on Wednesday. It is an adaption of the short stories of Haruki Murakami co-produced by Complicite and Setagaya Public Theatre.

It's three acts covering three different stories that are linked by a sense of urban alienation. It starts (and loops back round to) the title piece, where a kitchen salesman ponders on the disappearance of the town's elephant. This is followed by The Second Bakery Attack, an absolutely hilarious account of a married couple who wake up ravenously hungry and decide to rob a bakery (they can't find a late night bakery so settle for McDonalds). In the final story, Sleep, a dentist's wife finds herself unable to sleep and as this state of wakefulness continues her constructed life unravels.

Perhaps the most notable things about the production is the stunning use of audiovisual technology in the set design. The stage is a lattice of steel, light and noise that stands in very well for Tokyo and can be filled with projected images in highly ingenious ways. This works best in Sleep where a handheld digital video camera, front projection, moving monitors, floodlights and the music of Underworld combine to engender a visceral sense of the main character's disintegration.

Highly recommended. Oh, and it's in Japanese so it's easier to see the surtitles if you don't sit in the wings. I also discovered that the Barbican has a tropical roof garden. Who knew? Had a nice wander round there looking at the fig trees and terrapins beforehand.

Wednesday was also book overload day. What I bought in Waterstone's:

Diary by Chuck Palahiuk
Lucky Baby Jesus by Peter Bradshaw (Yes, that Peter Bradshaw)
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Double Vision by Pat Barker
Shikasta by Doris Lessing
Doomsday by Connie Willis

What I received from Amazon:

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Predator's Gold by Philip Reeve
The War Against Cliche by Martin Amis
The Cryptographer by Tobias Hill
Kafka Americana by Jonathan Lethem and Carter Scholz