Then there was the time when Martin Amis did a reading here. During the Q and A, someone asked the usual, innocuous question about what Martin had been reading lately. Shakespeare, was the answer, and then came a classic, brilliant Martin Amis rant. The thing about drama, Amis continued, is that it is the lowest form of creative writing. First comes poetry, then the novel, and then, much lower down the literary scale, comes drama. Drama, you see, is nothing but dialogue, and anyone who has written fiction can tell you the dialogue is the easy bit. Try writing a description of a field, or a house, or a town-that's hard. Writing dialogue is much, much easier. In the English language, think of how many great poets there are, how many great novelists. But there's only one great dramatist-Shakespeare.

A wonderful, unexpected, thought-provoking answer to a completely standard question. Especially since, unbeknownst to Martin Amis, the head of the Duke drama department just happened to be in the audience that night!