quippe | Entries tagged with alan bennett

The Blurb On The Back:

A sale? Why not? Release all your wonderful treasures on to 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 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 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.

Alan Bennett’s People premiered at the National Theatre, London, in October 2012.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

First staged in October 2012 at the National Theatre in London, PEOPLE, was inspired by Alan Bennett’s distaste for the National Trust and voyeurism of other people’s lives coupled with the commoditisation of privacy. He writes a fascinating introduction to this play, describing some of the thought processes behind its creation and linking it back to themes in other works that he’s produced but the play itself is a thin affair and although the humour is well crafted, the underlying material is thin. This is one for Bennett completionists more than casual readers.

The Blurb On The Back:

Untold Stories is Alan Bennett’s first collection of prose since Writing Home and 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. Also included are his much celebrated diaries for the years 1996 to 2004, as well as essays, reviews, lectures and reminiscences ranging from childhood trips to the local cinema and a tour around Leeds City Art Gallery to reflections on writing, honours and his Westminster Abbey eulogy for Thora Hird. At times heartrending and at others extremely funny, Untold Stories is a matchless and unforgettable anthology.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

In an anthology that’s part diary, part straight autobiography, part extracts from his work and part essays, Alan Bennett shows his talent for both comedy and tragedy to great effect. However because there are so many different components to the book, it didn’t really hold together in the sense that there’s no real sense of a common thread running through it. As such, it’s a great book to dip in and out of (and I think it’s a must for Bennett completists) but it is exhausting to sit down and read through it from beginning to end in one sitting.