Older readers at book signings in France tell him they recognise scenes from their own childhood.
Michael B was perplexed that the opening image was of Josef K watching a scantily-clad lapdancer but, as Nick Gill's adaptation unfolded, he began to recognise scenes from the novel.
"I just recognised this scene of a boy talking to his horse as something I'd heard before," he says.
Laws recognised the scene not just from the figure of Peter Rabbit, Potter's most famous character, but because she was already working on the text of the story, part of a collection of Potter drawings and manuscripts bequeathed to the museum in 1973 by the scholar and enthusiast Leslie Linder.
The raucous comedy was presented with an additional prize for "gut-wrenching performance" that recognised the scene in which its female stars battle food poisoning.
The group are almost all New York virgins, and they keep experiencing that inevitable déjà vu that comes from recognising a scene from the movies.
But it is always heartening to recognise a scene from the dramatisation: the death of old Count Bezukhov Andrei Bolkonskyy's leave-taking; giddiness in the Rostov's drawing room.
Casual Potter-watchers may be reminded of the setting for The Singing Detective while the keener – and there is a growing band of ever more dedicated fans – may recognise the scene from a 1969 play called Moonlight on the Highway.
At the read-through Jack would recognise the scenes.
Somewhat tricker to recognise were scenes from A Christmas Carol (1951), The Servant (1963) and – this is one of my all-time favourite films!
