Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English author, actor, humourist and playwright.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, West Yorkshire. The son of a Co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School (now Lawnswood School), learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained a place at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.^[1]

However, having spent time in Cambridge during national service, and partly wishing to follow the object of his unrequited love, he decided to apply for a scholarship at Oxford University. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford and went on to receive a first-class degree in history. While at Oxford he performed comedy with a number of future successful actors in the Oxford Revue. He was to remain at the university for several years, where he researched and taught Medieval History, before deciding he was not cut out to be an academic.

[edit] Personal life

Bennett has lived in Camden Town in London for thirty one years, though spends a good proportion of his time at his rural home in Clapham in his native Yorkshire and shares his home with Rupert Thomas (editor of the glossy magazine The World of Interiors) his partner for the last fourteen years and of whom he has movingly written in his autobiography Untold Stories:

"Always a late starter, I must count myself blessed that at a time, in my fifties, when I expected to remain permanently unattached, I found, or was found by a partner who, though much younger than I am, now shares my life. I can't quite boast that it is an ordinary life or, my parents' ambition, a life like other people's. But it does for us."

He also reveals in his biography that his parents disliked, and were made anxious by, what they called "splother", meaning excessive preening and fuss, and Bennett has always seemed to hate it, too. He is someone who backs into the limelight with every appearance of reluctant diffidence.

There was much press excitement when it was revealed in the 1990s that he had had a love affair with his former cleaning lady, and the tabloid press camped outside his house asking questions about his love life through the letterbox. As Bennet himself said of the affair in his diary, '"All you need to do if you want the nation's press camped on your doorstep is to say you once had a wank in 1947".^[2]

In September 2005, Bennett revealed that, in 1997, he had undergone treatment for cancer, and described the illness as a "bore". His chances of survival were given as being "much less" than 50%.^[3] In a BBC4 TV interview with Mark Lawson in December 2009 he revealed that the surgeon later told him that he had had a survival chance of 1 to 5 (20%)

In October 2008 Bennett announced that he was donating his entire archive of working papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries and books to the Bodleian Library free of charge, stating that it was a gesture of thanks repaying a debt he felt he owed to the UK's social welfare system that had given him educational opportunities which his humble family background would otherwise never have afforded.^[4]

[edit] Career

In August 1960, Bennett, along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook, achieved instant fame by appearing at the Edinburgh Festival in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe. After the Festival, the show continued in London and New York. He also appeared in My Father Knew Lloyd George. A highly regarded television comedy sketch series On the Margin (1966) was, unfortunately, erased: the BBC would habitually re-use the then-expensive videotape rather than keep it in the archives. Around this time Bennett often found himself playing vicars, and claims that as an adolescent he assumed he would grow up to be a Church of England clergyman, for no better reason than that he looked like one.

Forty Years On (stage play)

Bennett's first stage play, Forty Years On directed by Patrick Garland was produced in 1968.

Television plays

Bennett is both unsparing and compassionate in laying bare his characters' frailties. This can be seen in his television plays for LWT in the late 1970s and the BBC in the early 1980s, and in the 1987 Talking Heads series of monologues for television which were later performed at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1992. This was a sextet of poignantly comic pieces, each of which depicted several stages in the character's decline from an initial state of denial or ignorance of their predicament, through a slow realization of the hopelessness of their situation, and progressing to a bleak or ambiguous conclusion. A second set of six Talking Heads pieces followed a decade later.

Untold Stories (prose collection)

In his 2005 prose collection Untold Stories Bennett has written candidly and movingly of the mental illness that afflicted his mother and other family members. He began writing Untold Stories (published 2005) thinking it would be published posthumously.

In the autobiographical sketches which form a large part of the book Bennett writes openly for the first time about his homosexuality (Bennett has had relationships with women as well, although this is only touched upon in Untold Stories). Previously Bennett had referred to questions about his sexuality as being like asking a man dying of thirst to choose between Perrier or Malvern mineral water.^[5]

The Lady in the Van (radio play and book)

The Lady in the Van was based on his real-life experiences with a tramp called Miss Shepherd who lived on Bennett's driveway in several dilapidated vans for over fifteen years. A radio play of the same title was broadcast on 21 February 2009 on BBC Radio 4, with actor Maggie Smith reprising her role of Miss Shepherd, and Alan Bennett playing himself. The work has also been published in book form.

The Madness of King George (stage play and film)

In 1994 Bennett adapted his popular and much-praised 1991 play The Madness of George III for the cinema as The Madness of King George. The film received four Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Bennett's writing and the performances of Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren. It won the award for best art direction.

The History Boys (stage play and film)

Bennett's critically-acclaimed The History Boys was one of the biggest hits in the history of the National Theatre, which transferred to both the West End and Broadway. It won three Laurence Olivier Awards in February 2005, for Best New Play, Best Actor (Richard Griffiths), and Best Direction (Nicholas Hytner), having previously won Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and Evening Standard Awards for Best Actor and Best Play. Bennett himself received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre.^[6]

The History Boys also went on to win six Tony Awards on Broadway, including best play, best performance by a leading actor in a play (Richard Griffiths), best performance by a featured actress in a play (Frances de la Tour), and best direction of a play (Nicholas Hytner).

A film version of The History Boys was released in the UK on 13 October 2006. Bennett discussed the play and its themes in an interview on STV.^[7]

Enjoy (stage play)

Bennett wrote the play Enjoy in 1980. It was one of the rare flops in his career and barely scraped a run of seven weeks at the Vaudeville Theatre, in spite of the stellar cast of Joan Plowright, Colin Blakely, Susan Littler, Philip Sayer, Liz Smith (who replaced Joan Hickson during rehearsals) and in his first West End role Marc Sinden. It was directed by Ronald Eyre.^[8]

However, a new production of Enjoy had critics raving about it during its 2008 UK tour^[9] and moved to the West End of London in January 2009.^[10] The West End show had taken over £1m in advance ticket sales^[11] and even extended the run to cope with demand.^[12] Starring Alison Steadman, David Troughton & Julian Pindar.

The Habit of Art (stage play)

The play, directed by Nicholas Hytner, opened to rave reviews at the National Theatre in November 2009. It is about the relationship between the poet W. H. Auden and the composer Benjamin Britten^[13] and, as one critic has described it, it is designed both to shock as well as amuse:

'His portrait of Auden as a boozy, bossy old bore with no concept of personal hygiene and a penchant for fellating rent boys will outrage some of Auden's more devoted fans and send the prudish to their smelling salts. But it is wonderfully funny, too, most notably in the scene when Auden mistakes a respectable interviewer from the BBC for a rent boy and wastes no time in telling him to take his trousers off so the great poet can get to work on him.'^[2]

Voice acting

Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a fairly strong Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. His readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories on the children's TV programme Jackanory are also widely enjoyed.

[edit] Awards and honours

Bennett was made an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 1987. He was also awarded a D.Litt by the University of Leeds in 1990 and an Hon. PhD from Kingston in 1996.

However in 1998 Bennett refused an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, in protest at its accepting funding for a named chair in honour of press baron Rupert Murdoch.^[14] He also declined a CBE in 1988 and a knighthood in 1996.

[edit] Body of Work

Television

[edit] Bibliography

The gravestone, in Larch Wood (Railway Cutting) cemetery, of Alan Bennett's Uncle Clarence, subject of a 1985 radio monologue.

• Beyond the Fringe (with Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore). London: Souvenir Press, 1962, and New York: Random House, 1963
• Forty Years On. London: Faber, 1969
• Getting On. London: Faber, 1972
• Habeas Corpus. London: Faber, 1973
• The Old Country. London: Faber, 1978
• Enjoy. London: Faber, 1980
• Office Suite. London: Faber, 1981
• Objects of Affection. London: BBC Publications, 1982
• A Private Function. London: Faber, 1984
• Forty Years On; Getting On; Habeas Corpus. London: Faber, 1985
• The Writer in Disguise. London: Faber, 1985
• Prick Up Your Ears: The Film Screenplay. London: Faber, 1987
• Two Kafka Plays. London: Faber, 1987
• Talking Heads. London: BBC Publications, 1988; New York: Summit, 1990
• Single Spies. London: Faber, 1989
• Winner of Olivier Award: England's best comedy for 1989
• Single Spies and Talking Heads. New York: Summit, 1990
• The Lady in the Van, 1989
• Poetry in Motion (with others). 1990
• The Wind in the Willows. London: Faber, 1991
• Forty Years On and Other Plays. London: Faber, 1991
• The Madness of George III. London: Faber, 1992
• Poetry in Motion 2 (with others). 1992
• Writing Home (memoir & essays). London: Faber, 1994 (winner of the 1995 British Book of the Year award).
• The Madness of King George (screenplay), 1995
• Father ! Father ! Burning Bright (prose version of 1982 TV script, Intensive Care), 1999
• The Laying on of Hands (Stories), 2000
• The Clothes They Stood Up In (novella), 2001
• Untold Stories (autobiographical and essays), London, 2005, ISBN 0-571-22830-5
• The Uncommon Reader (novella), London, 2007
• A Life Like Other People's (memoir), London, 2009

[edit] Translations

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Peter Wolfe, Understanding Alan Bennett, University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 1-57003-280-7.
• Alexander Games (2001). Backing Into The Limelight: The Biography of Alan Bennett. Headline. ISBN 0-7472-7030-9. 
• Joseph H. O'Mealy,Alan Bennett: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, 2007.
• Kara McKechnie, Alan Bennett, The Television Series, Manchester University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7190-6806-5
• Robert Hewison Footlights – A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy, Methuen, 1983
• Roger Wilmut From Fringe to Flying Circus – Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980, Eyre Methuen, 1980

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alan Bennett

• Alan Bennett at the Internet Movie Database
• Bennett discussing the donation of his literary archive to the Bodleian Library
• BBC interview with Bennett about Enjoy
• Bennett talks about The History Boys and a teacher's role
• BBC Video interview with Bennett
• Bennett, Alan (1934–) Biography from screenonline
• with Bennett at stv.tv
• TonyAwards.com Interview with Bennett
• US publisher page for Bennett