Louis de Bernières - A Partisan's Daughter

From the outset, it’s clear that whatever anyone thought this was going to be, it isn’t.

Award-winning author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Louis de Bernières and his co-star Ilone Antonius-Jones stride in and immediately begin handing out small percussion instruments to the audience – your reviewer becomes the tambourine man. There are no mandolins in attendance – none of the classical variety, anyway, though some lyre-shaped guitars turn out to be mandolins specially crafted for de Bernières using a lost design, and inlaid with images of the author’s beloved cats.

Serbia is the destination for tonight’s musical travels, as the show was originally designed as a promotional tour in support of de Bernières latest work, A Partisan’s Daughter – although Woodstock turns out to be a stop on this spur of track, since we learn as much about the author as we do about Rosa, the book’s Serbian heroine.

De Bernières, whose 1990s reputation as Britain’s cultural and literary ambassador has been superseded by that of a boor, is surprisingly witty and engaging, sharing his cultural fluency in all things Balkan with an easygoing, unpretentious patter. The onstage relationship is captivating, with the German Antonius-Jones providing another layer of cultural exchange as she berates de Bernières loudly for letting “one good book” go to his head.

As we hear passages from A Partisan’s Daughter, based on stories told to a young de Bernières by a real-life Serbian emigré to London in the 1970s, it becomes clear that much of the author is in his latest work – a welcome change from his last effort, Birds Without Wings, which suffered from a curious sense of detachment. But is de Bernières really the grungy anonymous Dylan fan living in Rosa’s building that he claims to be? Or are there more parallels between him and Chris, the married Englishman with whom she becomes romantically involved? There seems a healthy dose of melancholy in both men, character and creator; the young punk, on the other hand, is a plaintive expression of yearning for the past.

It’s a past which de Bernières must have known intimately, because when he picks up his strange contraptions to play Dylan songs à la grecque, he sings with the voice of someone who’s belted the lyrics out alongside a blaring record player thousands of times. It isn’t musical – early in the show, it becomes clear that de Bernières is not a musician – but it tells a story as intriguing as any in his novels.