Books by Alan Bennett

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlan Bennett is the author of Writing Home, The Madness of George III, Talking Heads, The Clothes They Stood Up In and much else besides. Miss Shepherd lived in a Robin Reliant opposite Bennett's house in Camden Town. After a series of attacks on her van, he suggested she move, with her van, to his front drive. Initially reluctant, she agreed - and Bennett landed himself a tenancy that went on for fifteen years. The Lady in the Van is probably Alan Bennett's best-known work of non-fiction, and follows his other little blockbuster The Clothes They Stood Up In.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlan Bennett's classic story about Queen Elizabeth II What would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story. The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.Trade ReviewFor all its hilarity The Uncommon Reader has a heartfelt tone. It offers a lament on old age, some thoughts on reticence and a backward glance at a life wasted. * Sunday Times *An exquisitely produced jewel of a book. * The Times *Pure gold ... you would be hard put to find a defter satire on British philistinism ... the dialogue is priceless. * Mail on Sunday *Light, fresh, witty and warm. * Daily Telegraph *Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader would make a perfect stocking filler for just about anyone. -- Monica Ali * Guardian *Testament to Bennett's extraordinary skill - genius even -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *Wonderfully subversive * Independent *

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisIn 1974, the homeless Miss Shepherd moved her broken down van into Alan Bennett's garden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. And Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord. And yet she lived there for fifteen years. This account of those years was first published in 1989 in the London Review of Books. The play premiered in 1999, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Dame Maggie Smith, who reprise their roles in this new film adaptation. Shot on location at Bennett's house, Alex Jennings plays the author, alongside household names including Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent and Dominic Cooper.Trade ReviewPraise for Alan Bennett: 'Has you laughing as well as mopping your eyes. Utter genius * Daily Mail *Clear-eyed, touching, occasionally waspish ... ever honest * The Times *Alan Bennett continues to surprise and delight -- John Banville * Daily Telegraph *A perfect stocking filler for just about anyone -- Monica Ali * Guardian *

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlan Bennett''s beloved, best-known play, with a beautiful typographic cover. The best moments in reading are when you come across something a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead.As an unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys pursue sex, sport and a place at university, adolescent anarchy and staffroom rivalry provoke insistent questions about history and education.The History Boys premiered at the National Theatre, London, 2004, winning Evening Standard, Critics' Circle, Olivier and South Bank Awards. On Broadway, it received numerous awards, including six Tonys.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAdapted for the screen by the author from his celebrated memoir, Alan Bennett''s The Lady in the Van, is directed by long-standing collaborator Nicholas Hytner.The film tells the true story of the relationship between Alan Bennett and the singular Miss Shepherd, a woman of uncertain origins who ''temporarily'' parked her van in Bennett''s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years. Their unique story is funny, poignant and life-affirming.The Complete Lady in the Van contains a Foreword by Nicholas Hytner, a substantial Introduction with diary entries by Alan Bennett, the original memoir and the screenplay. The book includes numerous illustrations by David Gentleman, who sketched on set throughout filming, and a colour plate-section including behind-the-scenes photographs and stills from the film

Read more less

Book SynopsisThe Shielding of Mrs Forbes Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother, who thinks that if he must have a wife, he should have done better. Though her own husband isn't all that satisfactory either. Still, this is Alan Bennett, so what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling, perhaps shocking, and ultimately more true to people's predilections. The Greening of Mrs Donaldson Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with, then satisfactory and finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers, her mundane life becomes much more stimulating...Trade ReviewBeautiful and filthy -- Simon Hattenstone * Guardian *Amusingly peculiar ... tender and comic ... joyous anarchism ... It is good, old-fashioned British humour with the lightest of subversive twists -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *Artfully entertaining ... The stories have a dark, knowing shrewdness about erotic mischief, young and old ... As always the writing is tonally perfect, laced with deadpan as well as bedpan comedy -- Simon Schama * FT *Smut offers plenty of Bennett's trademark pleasures ... consistently amusing and full of witty turns of phrase -- Sarah Churchwell * Guardian *All Bennett's work seems to me a dreamy evocation of an imaginary world in which he'd like to dwell, full of jokes and queerness. These days, he seems to be getting steadily smuttier, ever more disinhibited. But more strength to his elbow, I say. -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *Marinated in subtleties. He's never as simple as he likes to appear ... That peculiarly British maladroitness - the perennial blush, wince and averted eye - and how adroitly it is grappled with, can make for great storytelling -- John Sutherland * The Times *Hilarious * The Times *In these two stories he applies his elegant literary gifts to his territory with the unabashed glee of one watching Benny Hill getting it on with Anita Brookner ... Bennett's talent for the honed quip is securely in place -- Adam Lively * Sunday Times *Unmitigated delight -- Christina Hardyment * The Times *Alan Bennett continues to surprise and delight -- John Banville * Sunday Telegraph *You can always rely on Alan Bennett to capture the intricate nuances of English Life and his latest offering is no exception * Good Housekeeping *Frank, funny and entertaining * Financial Times *A marvellous little book, small enough to put in a jacket pocket and so delightful that you'll want to keep taking it out again ... Part of the pleasure here is the unexpected mis-match between respectability and unseemly behaviour, but there's much more to it than that. These novellas are good enough to re-read and enjoy even when the events are no longer unexpected, and the reason is Bennett's sweet, easy prose. There is no sense of effort at all here. It's like watching an expert dancer dance, or an expert ice-skater skate. He just knows how to do it, and that's that * Independent on Sunday *

Read more less

Book Synopsis'I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked 'no threat' and did I stab Judi Dench with a pitchfork I should still be a teddy bear.' Alan Bennett's third collection of prose Keeping On Keeping On follows in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful Writing Home and Untold Stories, each published ten years apart. This latest collection contains Bennett's peerless diaries 2005 to 2015, reflecting on a decade that saw four premieres at the National Theatre (The Habit of Art, People, Hymn and Cocktail Sticks), a West End double-bill transfer, and the films of The History Boys and The Lady in the Van. There's a provocative sermon on private education given before the University at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and 'Baffled at a Bookcase' offers a passionate defence of the public library. The book includes Denmark Hill, a darkly comic radio play set in suburban south London, as well as Bennett's reflections on a quarter of a century's collaboration with Nicholas Hytner. This is an engaging, humane, sharp, funny and unforgettable record of life according to the inimitable Alan Bennett.Trade ReviewCleverer and funnier than any one person has a right to be ... inexhaustibly fascinating; Bennett has an eager, enquiring mind and a sharp way with words that can break your ideas open. * Sunday Times *Is able to make the world dance with a single word ... On every page there is a phrase to make you smile, poetry disguised as comedy. -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *Few diarists could offer such a consistently funny and touching authorial voice as Bennett. Long may he keep on keeping on. -- Ben Lawrence * Daily Telegraph *Wry and eloquent ... screamingly funny... his sentences are always beautiful. -- Miranda Sawyer * Observer *There is no other writer, certainly none from any other era or nation, quite like Alan Bennett, and having this much more of his work is an uncovenanted blessing. -- David Sexton * Evening Standard *It is not only Bennett's claws that are sharp. So are his eyes ... confirms his reputation as one of the sharpest and funniest writers in the English language. -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst * Spectator *There is not a dull or uninteresting page here ... teddy bear he may be but he has a tiger's teeth. * The Herald *An endlessly rewarding read by a man for all seasons and one who occupies a unique place in our culture and affections. -- Liz Thomson * The Arts Desk *A fascinating exercise in modern history ... a superb collection, written from the unique perspective of an octogenarian at the top of his stylistic game, with a keen eye towards the past we have lost and the future we may yet inhabit. * Daily Express *This latest anthology of diaries and essays is a beautiful, humane and honest collection of reflections. * Rachel Reeves *Every piece here conveys the sense of an idiosyncratic and cussed mind, alive and open to the world -- Joe Moran * Guardian *The literary equivalent of a warm cup of Horlicks spiked lavishly with whisky. * Metro, Books of the Year *Fire lit. Hot, thick toast. Coffee. Reading the inimitable Mr Bennett. Happiness. -- Nigel Slater[A] lavish miscellany ... appreciative, nostalgic and also hugely funny. * Prospect *PRAISE FOR ALAN BENNETT: 'Alan Bennett, with his combination of pitiless observation and gentle understatement, is perhaps the best-loved of English writers alive today * Sunday Telegraph *Intelligent, educated, engaging, humane, self-aware, cantankerous and irresistibly funny -- John Carey * Sunday Times *Not only my book of the year, it is my book of the decade -- Nigel Slater on UNTOLD STORIESAlan Bennett's work, which stands as one of the major achievements across several genres in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, demands the very best of us: not our praise but our attention. -- Ian Samson * TLS *

Read more less

Book SynopsisDesigned to meet the requirements for students at GCSE and A level, this accessible educational edition offers the complete text of The History Boys with a comprehensive study guide. Highlights of Andrew Bruff''s guide include: detailed analyses of character, theme and structure; a clear introduction to the context of the play and its author; key quotations and activities both for the student working alone and in the classroom.An unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university. A maverick English teacher at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher. A headmaster obsessed with results; a history teacher who thinks he's a fool.In Alan Bennett's award-winning and hugely popular play, staffroom rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how you teach it, about education and its purpose.

Read more less

Book Synopsis

Read more less

Book SynopsisGeorge III''s behaviour has often been odd, but now he is deranged, with rumours circulating that he has even addressed an oak tree as the King of Prussia. Doctors are brought in, the government wavers and the Prince Regent manoeuvres himself into power.Alan Bennett''s play explores the court of a mad king, and the fearful treatments he was forced to undergo. It is about the nature of kingship itself, showing how by subtle degrees the ruler''s delirium erodes his authority and status.The Madness of George III premiered at the National Theatre, London, in November 1991.

Read more less

Book SynopsisA collection of four Alan Bennett plays, with an introduction by the author which describes the background to their writing and performance.

Read more less

Book Synopsis''Believe me, my young friend, there is absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In them or out of them, it doesn''t matter. Whether you get away or you don''t, whether you arrive at your destination or whether you never get anywhere at all, you''re always busy.''Ever since the publication of Kenneth Grahame''s novel in 1908, the characters of Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger have delighted generations of readers. Now Alan Bennett has written an adaptation for the stage, a version which is both true to the original and yet carries that distinctive Bennett hallmark.Alan Bennett introduces this edition, writing about the history of the project and the staging of the production.''Bennett is even able to inject the odd sly joke for the adult without bewildering the tots... the result is a delightful evening, a treat for anyone.'' The Times

Read more less

Book SynopsisThis second volume of plays by Alan Bennett includes his two Kafka plays, one an hilarious comedy, the other a profound and searching drama. Also included is An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution. The fascination of these two plays lies in the way they question our accepted notions of treachery and, in different ways, make a sympathetic case for Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAdapted by the author from his autobiographical memoir, The Lady in the Van tells the story of Miss Mary Shepherd, whom Alan Bennett first came across when she was living in the street near his home in Camden Town. Taking refuge with her van in his garden originally for three months, she ended up staying fifteen years. Funny, touching and unexpectedly spectacular, The Lady in the Van marked the return to the stage of one of our leading playwrights.The Lady in the Van with Maggie Smith opened at the Queen''s Theatre, London, in December 1999.

Read more less

Book SynopsisHere, at last, is the astonishing sequel to Alan Bennett''s classic Writing Home, updated for paperback. Untold Stories contains significant previously unpublished work, including a poignant memoir of his family and of growing up in Leeds, together with his much celebrated diary for the years 1996-2004, and numerous other exceptional essays, reviews and comic pieces. Bennett, as always, is both amusing and poignant, whether he''s discussing his modest childhood or his work with figures such as Maggie Smith, Thora Hird and John Gielgud. Since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s Alan Bennett has delighted audiences worldwide with his gentle humour and wry observations about life. His many works include Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, Talking Heads, A Question of Attribution and The Madness of King George. The History Boys opened to great acclaim at the National in 2004, and is winner of the

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlan Bennett''s A Life Like Other People''s is a poignant family memoir offering a portrait of his parents'' marriage and recalling his Leeds childhood, Christmases with Grandma Peel, and the lives, loves and deaths of his unforgettable aunties Kathleen and Myra. Bennett''s powerful account of his mother''s descent into depression and later dementia comes hand in hand with the uncovering of a long-held tragic secret. A heartrending and at times irresistibly funny work of autobiography by one of the best-loved English writers alive today.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAuden often said that metre and rhyme led him down unexpected paths to thoughts he wouldn''t otherwise have had, and in this respect versification and fornication are not so different. Benjamin Britten, sailing uncomfortably close to the wind with his new opera, Death in Venice, seeks advice from his former collaborator and friend, W H Auden. During this imagined meeting, their first for twenty-five years, they are observed and interrupted by amongst others their future biographer and a young man from the local bus station.You are a rent boy. I am a poet. Over the wall lives the Dean of Christ Church. We all have our parts to play.Alan Bennett''s new play is as much about the theatre as it is about poetry or music. It looks at the unsettling desires of two difficult men, and at the ethics of biography. It reflects on growing old, on creativity and inspiration, and on persisting when all passion''s spent: ultimately, on the habit of art. <

Read more less

Book SynopsisA sale? Why not? Release all your wonderful treasures onto the open market and they are there for everyone to enjoy. It''s a kind of emancipation, a setting them free to range the world... a sale room here, an exhibition there; art, Lady Stacpoole, is a rover.People spoil things; there are so many of them and the last thing one wants is them traipsing through one''s house. But with the park a jungle and a bath on the billiard table, what is one to do? Dorothy wonders if an attic sale could be a solution.

Read more less

Book SynopsisAlready a bestseller, this is a wonderfully entertaining collection of Alan Bennett''s prose writings. Writing Home brings together diaries, reminiscences and reviews to give us a unique and unforgettable portrait of one of England''s leading playwrights. As a memoir it covers the production of his very first play, Forty Years On, which starred John Gieldgud, as well as many other important productions. His television series ''Talking Heads'' has become a modern-day classic; as part of the 1960s revue ''Beyond the Fringe'' Bennett helped to kick-start the English satire revolution, and has since remained one of our leading dramatists, most recently with The History Boys at the National Theatre. At the heart of the book is The Lady in The Van, since adapted into a radio play featuring Dame Maggie Smith. It is the true account of Miss Mary Shepherd, a homeless tramp who took up residence in Bennett''s garden and stayed for fifteen years. This new e

Read more less

Book SynopsisAfter two elegiac comedies about the decline of old England, Mr Bennett has now written a gorgeously vulgar but densely plotted farce that is a downright celebration of sex and the human body... a combination of hurtling action with verbal brilliance.Guardian

Read more less

Book Synopsis''We have, in the nick of time, a Play of the Year: Alan Bennett''s The Lady in the Van is a wonderfully bittersweet comic diary of the years in which a lethally dotty and very smelly old bat parked her unroadworthy vehicle in Bennett''s Camden garden, thereby providing him with a roughly equal amount of journalistic copy and guilty landlordly irritation.Sheridan Morley, Spectator

Read more less

Book SynopsisWriters like to elude their public, lead them a bit of a dance. They take them down untrodden paths, land them in unknown country where they have to ask for directions.In this personal anthology, Alan Bennett has chosen over seventy poems by six well-loved poets, discussing the writers and their verse in his customary conversational style through anecdote, shrewd appraisal and spare but telling biographical detail. Ranging from hidden treasures to famous poems, this is a collection for the beginner and the expert alike. Speaking with candour about his own reactions to the work, Alan Bennett creates profound and witty portraits of Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, John Betjeman, W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Philip Larkin, all the more enjoyable for being in his own particular voice.Anybody writing poetry in the thirties had somehow to come to terms with Auden. Auden, you see, had got a head start on the other poets. He''d got into the thirties first, like some

Read more less

Book Synopsis What were you in life? In life, as you put it, I was a schoolmaster. The Beth, an old fashioned cradle-to-grave hospital serving a town on the edge of the Pennines, is threatened with closure as part of an NHS efficiency drive. As Dr Valentine and Sister Gilchrist attend to the patients, a documentary crew, eager to capture its fight for survival, follows the daily struggle to find beds on the Dusty Springfield Geriatric Ward. Meanwhile, the old people's choir, in readiness for next week's concert, is in full swing, augmented by the arrival of Mrs Maudsley, aka Pudsey Nightingale. Alan Bennett's Allelujah! opened at the Bridge Theatre, London, in July 2018. With an introduction by Alan Bennett.

Read more less

Book SynopsisFaber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. Thinking Betty was in the bath Graham was watching a late-night programme on Channel 4 called Footballers with Their Shirts Off when she unexpectedly came in on the trail of the hairdryer.''I didn't know you were interested in football,'' said Betty.No one must ever find out that Graham is not the marrying sort'. Certainly not his wife, or his mother. As sex, blackmail and fanatical tidiness take over the West Yorkshire parish of Alwoodley, an unlikely caper unfolds.Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

Read more less

Book Synopsis***Available for pre-order now***The gorgeous, pocket-sized edition of the two brand-new Talking Heads***As seen on BBC1 and iPlayer*** 'Given the opportunity to revisit the characters from Talking Heads I've added a couple more, both of them ordinary women whom life takes by surprise. They just about end up on top and go on, but without quite knowing how. Still, they're in good company, and at least they've made it into print.' Alan Bennett's twelve Talking Heads are acknowledged masterworks by one of our most highly acclaimed writers. Some thirty years after the original six, Bennett has written Two Besides, a pair of monologues. Each, in its way, is a devastating portrait of grief. In An Ordinary Woman, a mother suffers the inevitable consequences when she makes life intolerable for herself and her family by falling for her own flesh and blood; while The Shrine tells the story behind a

Read more less

Book SynopsisTwo brand-new monologues in the Talking Heads series, as seen on BBC1 and iPlayer 'Given the opportunity to revisit the characters from Talking Heads I've added a couple more, both of them ordinary women whom life takes by surprise.

Read more less