Alan Bennett

Si sus celebres perros hubieran respondido a su llamada, la reina no habría descubierto el vehículo de la biblioteca móvil del ayuntamiento aparcado junto a las puertas de las cocinas del palacio, en el lugar menos regio de los jardines. Y no habria conocido a Norman, el joven y pelirrojo pinche de cocina que estaba leyendo un libro de Cecil Beaton e iba a constituirse en su peculiar asesor literario. Pero ya que estaba alli, la reina decide llevarse un libro. ¿Y que puede interesar a alguien cuyo unico oficio es mostrarse interesada? Porque una reina nunca debe ser interesante, ni tener otros intereses que los de sus subditos. Y jamas habla de sus gustos, solo pregunta por los de ellos.Isabel II de Inglaterra descubre en los estantes de la biblioteca el nombre de una escritora que conoce, lvy Compton-Burnett. Tiempo atras le habia concedido un titulo nobiliario menor, y recordaba su tan singular peinado. Y de Compton-Burnett a Proust, que leera en una de sus estancias en Balmoral, y de Proust a Genet, cuya sola mencion hara temblar al presidente de Francia, solo median algunos libros. Asi, azarosamente, ella, que hasta entonces solo habia sido una reina, una pura entelequia, un lugar vacio ocupado por una fuerte idea del "deber", descubrira el vertigo de la lectura

La señora Donaldson es una viuda reciente, de cincuenta y cinco años, con una hija casada, puritana e insoportablemente convencional que pretende que su madre viva reverenciando la memoria de un difunto marido muy aburrido. Aburrimiento contra el que la señora Donaldson no se rebelaba, y ni siquiera cuestionaba, educada en la firme creencia de que ser y hacer lo que se espera de nosotros son los pilares de la cotidiana felicidad. O conformidad.Pero ahora su vida comienza a cambiar. Ha conseguido un trabajo en un hospital: actua interpretando a pacientes, con sus correspondientes enfermedades, para ilustrar las clases del doctor Ballantyne. Y, de interpretacion en interpretacion, la señora Donaldson comienza a descubrir pliegues y honduras que ignoraba de si misma. Tambien ha alquilado una habitacion a una pareja de estudiantes que le proponen un pago en especies para saldar lo que le deben: le ofreceran un espectaculo porno solo para sus ojos. Y ella, contra todo pronostico, acepta, los contempla y cuando terminan les ofrece una taza de te. Y comienza La señora Donaldson rejuvenece.En cuanto a La ignorancia de la señora Forbes, su hijo Graham va a casarse con una chica que lleva el muy vulgar nombre de Betty. Y aunque muy rica, es fea. La dominante y esnob señora no entiende el porque de todo esto; los guapos siempre se han casado con guapas, y viceversa. Ella lo hizo, y por eso tiene un hijo guapo. Ademas, su familia esta en el escalon mas alto de la clase media, donde no se usan nombres como Betty. El señor Forbes, por su parte, asiente a todo, y lo unico que le inquieta es que Graham es y ha sido la principal ocupacion de su esposa, y si se casa y se marcha, todo el peso de la insoportable señora Forbes recaera sobre sus hombros. Y el bello Graham, a su manera, quiere a Betty, y hasta puede follar alegremente con ella, siempre que haya un espejo en el que el pueda verse, y quiza imaginar otros cuerpos menos femeninos, como el de Gary, por ejemplo. Porque la señora Forbes ignora muchas mas cosas de las que sabe...Alan Bennett, con su mirada entre candida y malevola, construye con estos dos relatos, tan indecentes como inteligentes, un conmovedor y muy divertido grotesco de la clase media.Alan Bennett nos presenta dos rancias mujeres de mediana edad y las pone en el camino de una total renovacion. Pero el territorio de Bennett no es el de la autoayuda, y a las señoras les espera algo mucho mas subversivo obsceno, incluso. Claro que ellas tampoco son lo que parecen, y el autor nos muestra cuan equivocas pueden ser las apariencias. Y hasta las apariencias de las apariencias (Nora Krug, The Washington Post).Estos relatos son tan buenos que querran leerlos y releerlos, y disfrutaran de ellos como la primera vez, y la razon es la deliciosa, afilada prosa de Bennett. Es como contemplar la danza de un bailarin experto o a un gran patinador que se desliza sobre el hielo (B. Robshaw, The Independent).Dos relatos muy sustanciosos en un libro ligero. Y hay que reconocer que este maestro de los relatos largos, o novelas cortas, consigue inquietar a sus modernos lectores, a quienes, se supone, ya nada sorprende (Thomas Mallon, The New York Times).

A sale? Why not? Release all your wonderful treasures onto the open market and they are there for everyone to enjoy. Its a kind of emancipation, a setting them free to range the world ... a saleroom 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 ones 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. People premieres at the National Theatre, London, in October 2012. As with Alan Bennetts previous two plays, The History Boys and The Habit of Art, People will open in the Lyttelton Theatre in a production directed by the Nationals artistic director Nicholas Hytner.- Howre you doing?- Not sure.- Well why dont you get on the mobile to your dick and find out.

Designed 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 Bruffs 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 hes a fool.In Alan Bennetts 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.

Auden often said that metre and rhyme led him down unexpected paths to thoughts he wouldnt 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 Bennetts 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 passions spent: ultimately, on the habit of art. In the end, said Auden, art is small beer. The really serious things in life are earning ones living and loving ones neighbour.

Funny, touching and real, this second collection of Alan Bennetts classic work for television from the late 1970s and early 1980s is full of fine observations of life as it is lived. Often imitated but never equalled, Bennetts work is a masterclass in how to write for the small screen and gives as much enjoyment in the reading as it did in the viewing. The television plays included in this volume are Our Winnie, All Day on the Sands, One Fine Day, Marks, Say Something Happened, Rolling Home and Intensive Care. This volume also contains a new general introduction by Alan Bennett. A companion volume of Alan Bennetts work from the 1970s is published as Me, Im Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

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 hes a fool. In Alan Bennetts new play, staff room rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how you teach it; about education and its purpose.The History Boys premiered at the National in May 2004.Nothing could diminish the incendiary achievement of this subtle, deep-wrought and immensely funny play about the value and meaning of education .. In short, a superb, life-enhancing play.Guardian

- 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 peoples choir, in readiness for next weeks concert, is in full swing, augmented by the arrival of Mrs Maudsley, aka Pudsey Nightingale. Alan Bennetts Allelujah! opened at the Bridge Theatre, London, in July 2018. With an introduction by Alan Bennett.

Alan Bennett is the acknowledged master of the television play. This vintage collection of his work from the 1970s illustrates his skill and mastery of the medium from the beginning. Perceptive, poignant, truthful and very funny, the work here gives as much enjoyment in the reading as it did in the viewing, and provides a welcome addition to the Bennett canon. The television plays included are A Day Out, Sunset Across the Bay, A Visit from Miss Prothero, Me, Im Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Green Forms, The Old Crowd and Afternoon Off. This volume contains a new general introduction by Alan Bennett, as well as the original preface by Lindsay Anderson to The Old Crowd. A companion volume of Alan Bennetts work from the late 1970s and early 1980s is published as Rolling Home.

This 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.

'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.

George IIIs 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 Bennetts 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 rulers delirium erodes his authority and status.

Alan Bennetts first collection of prose since Writing Home takes in all his major writings over the last ten years. The title piece is a poignant family memoir with an account of the marriage of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the uncovering of a long-held family secret. Bennett, as always, is both amusing and poignant, whether hes discussing his modest childhood or his work with the likes of Maggie Smith, Thora Hird and John Gielgud. Also included are his much celebrated diaries for the years 1996 to 2004. At times heartrending and at others extremely funny,Untold Stories is a matchless and unforgettable anthology.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 Evening Standard Award, the South Bank Award and the Critics Circle Award for Best New Play.Perhaps the best loved of English writers alive today.Sunday TelegraphUntold Stories is published jointly with Profile Books.

Already a bestseller, this is a wonderfully entertaining collection of Alan Bennetts prose writings. Writing Home brings together diaries, reminiscences and reviews to give us a unique and unforgettable portrait of one of Englands leading playwrights. As a memoir it covers the production of his very first play, Forty Years On, which starred John Gieldgud. 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 Bennetts garden and stayed for fifteen years. This new edition also includes Bennetts introduction to his Oscar-nominated screenplay for The Madness of King George and his more recent diaries.

Alan Bennetts A Life Like Other Peoples 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. Bennetts powerful account of his mothers 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.

Alan Bennetts classic story about Queen Elizabeth IIWhat 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.

Its a dwindling band; old-fashioned and of a certain age, you can pick us out at funerals and memorial services because we can sing the hymns without the book. Alan Bennett writes: In 2001 the Medici Quartet commissioned the composer George Fenton to write them a piece commemorating their thirtieth anniversary. George Fenton appeared in my play Forty Years On and has written music for many of my plays since, and he asked me to collaborate on the commission. Hymn was the result. First performed at the Harrogate Festival in August 2001, its a series of memoirs with music. Besides purely instrumental passages for the quartet, many of the speeches are under-scored, incorporating some of the hymns and music I remember from my childhood and youth. The text includes both words and music. Hymn is coupled with Cocktail Sticks, an oratorio without music that revisits some of the themes and conversations of Alan Bennetts memoir A Life Like Other Peoples. A son talks to his dead father as his mother yearns for a different life. Its funny, tender and sad. The pinnacle of my social life is a scrutty bit of lettuce and tomato and some tinned salmon. Mind you, I read in Ideal Home that if you mix tinned salmon with this soft cheese you can make it into one of those moussy things. Shove a bit of lemon on it and it looks really classy.

This collection of Alan Bennetts work includes his first play and West End hit, Forty Years On, as well as Getting On, Habeus Corpus, and Enjoy.Forty Years OnAlan Bennetts most gloriously funny play ... a brilliant, youthful perception of a nation in decline, as seen through the eyes of a home-grown school play ... a classic.Daily MailGetting On Winner of the Evening Standard Best Comedy Award in 1971, Getting on is an account of a middle-aged Labour MP, so self-absorbed that he remains blind to the fact that his wife is having an affair with the handyman, his mother-in-law in dying, his son is getting ready to leave home, his best friend thinks him a fool and that to everyone who comes into contact with him he is a self-esteeming joke.Habeus CorpusAfter two elegiac comedies about the decline of old England, Mr Bennett has now written a gorgeously vulgar but densely plotted facre that is a downright celebration of sex and the human body ... a combination of hurtling action with verbal brilliance.GuardianEnjoyEnjoy uncannily foresaw the attitudes to English working-class life now enshrined in themeparks. The classic tug in Bennett between childhod Yorkshire and intellectual sophistication has never been better, or more daringly expressed.Observer

Adapted for the screen by the author from his celebrated memoir, Alan Bennetts 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 Bennetts 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