PROFESSOR KLOVER FURNISHES AN EXPLANATION

The drama examines the interior of the human soul, the inner life that exists behind the facade which we present towards the world - the dark and cobwebbed spaces behind the upholstered certainties of all our lives. What will we find there? Sometimes it will be the spent matchstick of a long-forgotten passion, or the outdated five pence coin of change. Occasionally we may find the bright red lego brick of childhood trauma. Whatever long-lost acquaintances we may uncover, we can guarantee surprise, recognition and an occasional bout of mild nausea as we journey together into the world behind the furniture.

The birth of the drama is the birth of its protagonist - for in our time, each of us has sat hunched, surrounded by warm and comfortably yielding surfaces, awaiting the events that will bring us, screaming and in pain, to our full status as an actor in the human arena. Our hero's one companion is the voice with which his upholstered environment addresses him, and the unambiguously phallic nature of his subsequent attack thereon signifies the Oedipal undertones that underlie such relationships from our very birth.

In the following scenes, the stage becomes the persona, the "reception area" between the collective unconscious and the world outside, as themes of shifting identity are brought before us. At first the individual is unsure of the boundaries between himself and other people: later his bewilderment at the apparently arbitrary behaviour of his parents becomes apparent. Is Daddy a reassuring and avuncular figure who loves us, or a distorted archetype from the interior, the leering, sweaty despoiler of our mother? The desire for possession of the mother is further explored, a yearning to feel "safe and comfortable" in the nutritious company of the breasts we so arousingly remember.

Extracted with permission from 'Professor Klover Furnishes An Explanation', published by Anspruchsvolls Verlag. The full text of Prof. Klover's article can found in the Behind The Furniture programme.

Prof. Klover is the author of many authoritative works, including Chimneys and Umbrellas in Mary Poppins and Pinocchio's Nose: Phallic Symbolism and Paedophilia in Disney. He is currently Head of Media Studies at the University of Pretension, California.