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The ebook edition of Alan Bennetts celebrated monologuesAlan Bennetts Talking Heads is pretty much the best thing ever. David Sedaris Alan Bennett sealed his reputation as the master of observation with Talking Heads, a series of twelve groundbreaking monologues, originally filmed for BBC Television, starring Patricia Routledge, Thora Hird, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Stephanie Cole, Eileen Atkins, David Haig, Penelope Wilton and Alan Bennett himself. This collection includes: A Woman of No Importance, A Chip in the Sugar, Bed Among the Lentils, A Lady of Letters, Her Big Chance, Soldiering On, A Cream Cracker Under the Settee, The Hand of God, Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet, Playing Sandwiches, The Outside Dog, Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Waiting for the Telegram. Uplifting, deeply moving, full of humanity and wit, they remain essential, glorious reading.

"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.

The Talking Heads monologues are widely regarded as one of Alan Bennetts finest dramatic achievements. First broadcast on BBC TV and BBC Radio 4 in the 1980s and 1990s, they won a host of awards and huge popular acclaim, and remain among his most admired works today.This collection includes all twelve Talking Heads, plus the precursor of that series, A Woman of No Importance. Beautifully crafted and full of compassion and wry observation, each tale is ripe with the quirky, insightful detail that has become Bennett's trademark. The monologues are:A Woman of No Importance (Patricia Routledge); A Chip in the Sugar (Alan Bennett); A Lady of Letters (Patricia Routledge); Bed Among the Lentils (Anna Massey); Soldiering On (Stephanie Cole); Her Big Chance (Julie Walters); A Cream Cracker Under the Settee (ThoraHird); Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet (Patricia Routledge); The Hand of God (Eileen Atkins); Playing Sandwiches (David Haig); The Outside Dog (Julie Walters); Nights in the Gardens of Spain (Penelope Wilton) and Waiting for the Telegram (Thora Hird).

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 makeshift roadside shrine, introducing us to Lorna, bearing witness in her high-vis jacket, the bereft partner of a dedicated biker with a surprising private life.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Sparklingly sardonic ... There really is no one like Bennett' Independent'Filled with elegiac memories and literary gossip ... a major National Treasure' Lynn Barber4 March. HMQ pictured in the paper at an investiture wearing gloves, presumably as a precaution against Coronavirus. But not just gloves; these are almost gauntlets. I hope they're not the thin end of a precautionary wedge lest Her Majesty end up swathed in protective get-up such as is worn at the average crime scene.20 March. With Rupert now working from home my life is much easier, as I get regular cups of tea and a lovely hot lunch.

Si sus célebres 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. Y no habria conocido a Norman, el pinche de cocina que estaba leyendo un libro de Cecil Beaton e iba a constituirse en su asesor literario. Pero 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 halla en la biblioteca el libro de una escritora que conoce, Ivy Compton-Burnett. Tiempo atras le habia concedido un titulo nobiliario menor. Y de Compton-Burnett a Proust, y de Proust a Genet, solo median algunos libros. Asi, azarosamente, ella, que hasta entonces solo habia sido una reina, una pura entelequia, descubrira el vertigo de la lectura, del ser, del placer.Alan Bennett, que desde 1960 se pasea de la television al teatro, del cine a los libros, de la alta a la baja cultura, continua, para deleite de sus lectores, saltandose todos los limites con esta miniatura exquisita, mordiente y divertida.Alan Bennett imagina en esta encantadora nouvelle lo que podria ocurrir si la soberana de Inglaterra fuera presa de repente de una intensa, devoradora pasion por los libros. Y lo que en otras manos podria resultar un ejercicio forzado, o un irrespetuoso y frivolo delito de lesa majestad, aqui es una comedia deliciosa, y una poderosa reflexion sobre el poder, y el poder de la letra impresa... Los admiradores de sus obras teatrales, de sus ensayos y sus diarios, saben que Bennett es uno de los mas sutiles y elegantes escritores de nuestra epoca (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post).Tan grande es el encanto de este libro, que podriamos facilmente tomarlo por un amable jeu desprit; una de esas agudas, melancolicas fabulas realistas que Bennett urde con inmensa maestria. Pero es mas que eso. Bajo su atractivo mas inmediato, bulle una salvaje indignacion, digna de Jonathan Swift, contra la estupidez, el filisteismo y la arrogancia del poder, y una apasionada defensa del poder civilizador del arte (Jane Shilling, The Times).Bennett es el equivalente literario de un caricaturista genial. Se apropia de todos los topicos sobre la reina y los hace encajar en el universo bennettiano. Y uno nunca puede olvidar su feroz inteligencia, su divertido interes por lo trivial (Sam Leith, The Spectator).Un cuento de hadas cautivador, delicioso y muy divertido. Una aguda meditacion acerca del subversivo placer de la lectura (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times).

Faber 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 didnt 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.

You have to keep your ears open for Alan Bennetts Insurance Man. It had visual impact so powerful that you were in danger of missing some very good lines simply because nobody spoke them in close up; you had to catch them on the wing. And if there was one line that summed up both Bennetts play and Kafkas novel The Trial, which provided some of this framework, that line was "Just because youre the injured party, it doesnt mean youre not guilty".Guardian Kafka himself figures in these two brilliant scripts: one a hilarious comedy, the other a profound and searching drama. This edition includes an introduction by Alan Bennett.

*** Pre-order ENOUGH SAID, Alan Bennetts fourth collection of diaries and prose, now! Publishing March 2026 ***Killing Time is a wonderful surprise gift from Alan Bennett - a new story, set in a home for the elderly; a glorious, darkly comic treat. A mini-masterpiece. THE TIMESFull of wit and style. OBSERVERA terrific cast of characters, and secrets and chaos aplenty. iNEWSA geriatric Lord of the Flies. SPECTATORWe have a choir and on special occasions a glass of dry sherry. Its less of a home and more of a club and very much a community.Hill Topp House is a superior council home for the elderly. Among the unforgettable residents are Mr Cresswell the ex-cruise ship hairdresser, Mr Peckover the deluded archaeologist, and the enterprising Mrs Foss. Covid is the cause of fatalities and the source of darkly comic confusion, but its also the key to liberation. As staff are hospitalised, protocol breaks down and the surviving residents seize their moment, to scamper freely, arthritis allowing, in the warmth of the summer sun.Violet? Shell be having a little lie-down, said Mrs McBryde. She likes to give her pacemaker a rest. Ill rout her out.THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER.Killing Time was a Sunday Times bestseller w/e 09/11/2024 to w/e 28/12/2024.

Adapted 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 Queens Theatre, London, in December 1999.