Untold Stories

Product Information

Bennett was born on 9 May 1934 in Armley, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. [1] The younger son of a Co-op butcher, Walter, and his wife, Lilian Mary (née Peel), Bennett attended Christ Church, Upper Armley, Church of England School (in the same class as Barbara Taylor Bradford), and then Leeds Modern School (now Lawnswood School). He has an older brother, Gordon, who is three years his senior. [2] Alan Bennett, perhaps by virtue of having at least potentially crossed some of the chasms of social class that so profoundly divide British society, seems able to comment, often with no more than an occasional word or phrase, on those tentative but agreed assumptions that make us what we are. “Minor writers often convey a more intense flavour of their times than those whose range is broader and concerns more profound.” In the autobiographical sketches which form a large part of the book Bennett wrote openly for the first time about his bisexuality. Previously Bennett had referred to questions about his sexuality as like asking a man who has just crawled across the Sahara desert to choose between Perrier or Malvern mineral water. [24] And that is exactly what she did to the country. I remember as a child chanting "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher" when, as Education Secretary, she ended the free milk program for elementary school children. As PM she continued her assaults on the underprivileged while boosting the coffers of the Hooray Henrys.

Untold Stories | Faber Untold Stories | Faber

And you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you passed this one up, at least if you’re an Alan Bennett fan. That’s because there’s actually a lot of good stuff here, including some pretty interesting mini essays that take you behind the scenes of some of Bennett’s theatre productions or that go into the inspirations for various different stories that he’s worked on throughout the years. Obviously, I thought, we have strayed into the wrong ward, much as Elizabeth Taylor did in the film of Suddenly Last Summer. Mam was not ill like this. She had nothing to do with the distracted creature who sat by the nearest bed, her gown hitched high above her knees, banging her spoon on a tray. But as I turned to go I saw that Dad was walking on down the ward. Playwright who rejected a knighthood says he's probably the last real monarchist left in Britain The Independent, 31 May 2009 His elegiac records of provincial lives and aspects of Englishness which are on the verge of disappearance has led to his being linked in the public mind with Philip Larkin, not least because Bennett has read and recorded Larkin's verse. But Untold Stories actually reveals how sharply Bennett dissents from the poet. Larkin comes up repeatedly; his poetic achievement, on the one hand, crisply and brilliantly analysed, on the other, his malignant depressiveness revealed.Moving to the completed list - as for the secondary talent remark, the more I read by and about Alan Bennett, the more I regard it as my own failing that I wasn't familiar with him before a year or so ago.

Alan Bennett: Untold Stories - Penguin Books UK

urn:lcp:untoldstories0000benn:lcpdf:17240aa2-2604-4d70-9697-b211e260dc71 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier untoldstories0000benn Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t4cp3xr1v Invoice 1213 Isbn 9780571228317 We publish a Literature Newsletter when we have news and features on UK and international literature, plus opportunities for the industry to share. This book won't do anything to tarnish Alan Bennett's reputation as one of Britain's best writers, but it is only this reputation that allows him and his publisher to get away with such a lazy offering. Bennett adapted his 1991 play The Madness of George III for the cinema. Entitled The Madness of King George (1994), the film received four Academy Award nominations: for Bennett's writing and the performances of Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren. It won the award for best art direction.

Fourth Street Chekov Theatre / City Center / The New York Public Library Theatre Collection / The Shakespearewrights / The Threepenny Opera (1956) I loved the description of his shy working class parents and his father’s sartorial preferences: "He had two suits: “my suit” and “my other suit” being the one he wore every day, “my other suit” his was best." I also enjoyed rather sarcastic if not candid account of his aunties, who were striving to raise above their class. At the same time, though, this is pretty much the exact same book as Keeping On Keeping On, and that one was a bit of a challenge to read as well. Alan Bennett’s diffident, often shy public persona has arguably been crucial to his sustained and ever-growing success, but any perceived aura of cosiness belies a sharpness of intellect and wit that has proved adept at dissecting the mores of the English and their institutions across a variety of genres.