Alan Bennett Popular Books
Alan Bennett Biography & Facts
Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English playwright, author, actor and screenwriter. Over his entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award. Bennett was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame and later a Special Tony Award. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full time, his first stage play, Forty Years On, being produced in 1968. He also became known for writing dramatic monologues Talking Heads which ran in 1988, and 1999 on BBC1 earning a British Academy Television Award. Bennett gained acclaim with his various plays at the Royal National Theatre. He received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Play for Single Spies in 1990. Next, he made his breakthrough with the play The Madness of George III in 1992. For this play, he received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play. The following year he staged a theatrical production of the BBC series Talking Heads in 1992. He continued receiving acclaim for his plays The Lady in the Van in 1999, The History Boys in 2004, and The Habit of Art in 2009. He won his second Tony Award for Best Play for The History Boys in 2005. The following plays were later adapted into films, The Madness of King George (1994), for which he received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nomination, The History Boys (2005), and The Lady in the Van (2015). Bennett is also known for a wide variety of audio books, including his readings of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Winnie-the-Pooh. Early life Bennett was born on 9 May 1934 in Armley, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire. 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. Bennett learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his national service before applying for a scholarship at Oxford University. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford, from which he graduated with a first-class degree in history. While at Oxford he performed comedy with a number of eventually successful actors in the Oxford Revue. He remained at the university for several years, where he served as a junior lecturer of Medieval History at Magdalen College, before deciding, in 1960, that he was not suited to being an academic. Career Early career In August 1960, Bennett – along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook – gained fame after an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe, with the show continuing in London and New York. He also appeared in My Father Knew Lloyd George. His television comedy sketch series On the Margin (1966) was erased; the BBC re-used expensive videotape rather than keep it in the archives. However, in 2014 it was announced that audio copies of the entire series had been found. Bennett's first stage play Forty Years On, directed by Patrick Garland, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose, and broadcasting and many appearances as an actor. Despite a long history with both the National Theatre and the BBC, Bennett never writes on commission, saying "I don't work on commission, I just do it on spec. If people don't want it then it's too bad." Bennett's many works for television include his first play for the medium, A Day Out in 1972, A Little Outing in 1977, Intensive Care in 1982, An Englishman Abroad in 1983, and A Question of Attribution in 1991. But perhaps his most famous screen work is the 1988 Talking Heads series of monologues for television which were later performed at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1992. A second set of six Talking Heads followed a decade later. 1980s Bennett wrote the play Enjoy in 1980. It 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. A new production of Enjoy attracted very favourable notices during its 2008 UK tour and moved to the West End of London in January 2009. The West End show took over £1 million in advance ticket sales and even extended the run to cope with demand. The production starred Alison Steadman, David Troughton, Richard Glaves, Carol Macready and Josie Walker. 1990s Bennett wrote The Lady in the Van based on his experiences with an eccentric woman called Miss Shepherd, who lived on Bennett's driveway in a series of dilapidated vans for more than fifteen years. It was first published in 1989 as an essay in the London Review of Books. In 1990 he published it in book form. In 1999 he adapted it into a stage play, which starred Maggie Smith and was directed by Nicholas Hytner. The stage play includes two characters named Alan Bennett. On 21 February 2009 it was broadcast as a radio play on BBC Radio 4, with Maggie Smith reprising her role and Alan Bennett playing himself. He adapted the story again for a 2015 film, with Maggie Smith reprising her role again, and Nicholas Hytner directing again. In the film Alex Jennings plays the two versions of Bennett, although Alan Bennett appears in a cameo at the very end of the film. 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. 21st century Bennett's critically acclaimed The History Boys won three Laurence Olivier Awards in 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 also received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre. The History Boys won 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 (Ni.... Discover the Alan Bennett popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alan Bennett books.
Best Seller Alan Bennett Books of 2024
-
Charles Bukowski
Barry Miles'Fear makes me a writer, fear and a lack of confidence'Charles Bukowski chronicled the seedy underside of the city in which he spent most of his life, Los Angeles. His heroes were ...
-
I Regret Almost Everything
Keith McNallyThe entertaining, irreverent, and surprisingly moving memoir by the visionary restaurateur behind such iconic New York establishments as Balthazar and Pastis. A memoir by the leg...
-
The Mersey Sound
Adrian Henri, Brian Patten & Roger McGough'The Mersey Sound is an attempt to introduce contemporary poetry to the general reader by publishing representative work by each of three modern poets in a single volume, in each c...
-
The Conquest of New Spain
Bernal Diaz Del Castillo & John CohenVivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a firstperson account of one of the most startling military episodes in history: the overthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruth...
-
Flash Flood
Chris RyanBen's on a trip to London to meet his mum. But an accident at the Thames Barrier, combined with a tidal surge and a dramatic thunderstorm and suddenly his trip turns into some...
-
The Habit of Art
Alan BennettBenjamin 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 imagin...
-
Diaries Volume Three
Alastair CampbellPOWER AND RESPONSIBILITY is the third volume of Alastair Campbell's unique daily account of life at the centre of the Blair government. It begins amid conflict in Kosovo, and ends ...
-
The Love Knot
Charlotte BinghamThree friends make their mark on the world in this captivating and moving saga. From the million copy and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlotte Bingham, for fans of Louise Doug...
-
Hunting People
Hunter DaviesHunter Davies's first major interview was with John Masefield for The Sunday Times in 1963. In the years since, he has interviewed many of the most famous people that the late ...
-
How to be a Brit
George MikesThe hilariously accurate, witty and indispensable manual for everyone who longs to attain True Britishness'Got me in tears of laughter' 5 Reader Review'Laughoutloud hilarious, witt...
-
Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe & Philip WayneThe second part of Goethe's masterpiece opens with Faust struggling to recover from the death of his beloved Gretchen. The quickwitted demon Mephistopheles soon persuades him to lo...
-
Classical Literary Criticism
T. DorschThe works collected in this volume have profoundly shaped the history of criticism in the Western world: they created much of the terminology still in use today and formulated endu...
-
Escape To London
Mary Jane StaplesAustria, 1938. Anne von Korvacs watches in horror as Hitler's tanks roll through the streets of Vienna, amid crowds of cheering supporters. Her embittered exhusband, now a fervent ...
-
The Complete Plays
Christopher MarloweMarlowe's seven plays dramatise the fatal lure of potent forces, whether religious, occult or erotic. In the victories of Tamburlaine, Faustus's encounters with the demonic, the i...
-
A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems
Nick Laird & A.E. HousmanA. E. Housman was one of the bestloved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss. They are expressed in simple ...
-
Flake
Matthew DooleyWINNER OF THE BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTIONA GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEARA stunning first graphic novel by a Cape/Comica/Observer graphic short story competitio...
-
Chess
Stefan Zweig'... a human being, an intellectual human being who constantly bends the entire force of his mind on the ridiculous task of forcing a wooden king into the corner of a wooden board,...
-
A Field Guide to the English Clergy
The Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie‘Ridiculously enjoyable’ Tom HollandA Book of the Year for The Times, Mail on Sunday and BBC History MagazineThe ‘Mermaid of Morwenstow’ excommunicated a cat for mousing on a Sunda...
-
Cyrano de Bergerac
Edmond RostandPoet and soldier, brawler and charmer, Cyrano de Bergerac is desperately in love with Roxane, the most beautiful woman in Paris. But there is one very large problem he has a nose ...
-
ROAR
Bruce WagnerA new novel by Hollywood’s "master of satire."The myth of an epic, public lifeits triumphs and tragediesis a particularly American obsession. ROAR is a metafictional exploration of...
-
Goodnight Sweetheart
Charlotte BinghamExciting and dramatic but tender and heartfelt; this is a novel that you will return to again and again. From the million copy and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlotte Bingham...
-
Balancing Acts
Nicholas HytnerFrom the Tony Award and Laurence Olivier Awardwinning former director of London's National Theatrethis is a fascinating, candid, eloquent memoir about his career directing theater,...
-
Selected Poems
Tony HarrisonA revised edition of Tony Harrison's awardwinning Selected Poems This indispensable new selection of Tony Harrison's poems includes over sixty poems from his famous sonnet sequence...
-
Vortex
Chris RyanWhen Ben Tracey sets out with his cousin to spot hen harriers a protected bird of prey he doesn't expect to stumble upon a secret operation. But renegade researchers are using a ...
-
Complete Jack The Ripper
Donald RumbelowFully updated and revised, Donald Rumbelow’s classic work is the ultimate examination of the facts, theories, fictions and fascinations surrounding the greatest whodunit in history...
-
London Journal 1762-1763
James Boswell & Gordon TurnbullEdinburghborn James Boswell, at twentytwo, kept a daily diary of his eventful second stay in London from 1762 to 1763. This journal, not discovered for more than 150 years, is a de...
-
Colour Bar
Susan WilliamsSir Seretse Khama, the first President of Botswana and heir apparent to the kingship of the Bangwato people, brought independence and great prosperity to his nation after colonial ...
-
Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Rebecca Front'Hilarious' The Times'I was completely captivated' David SedarisPeople are odd. Even the most predictable of us sometimes defy expectations. Add to that the tricks that life plays ...
-
Battleground
Chris RyanYou wake up in a dark room with no idea where you are. You are gagged and forced into a waiting truck. You have done nothing wrong. What would you do? Fourteenyearold Ben travels t...
-
Home at Grasmere
Dorothy Wordsworth & William WordsworthA continuous text made up of extracts from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal and a selection of her brother's poems. Dorothy Wordsworth kept her Journal 'because I shall give William pl...
-
Russian Thinkers
Isaiah Berlin & Henry HardyFew, if any, Englishlanguage critics have written as perceptively as Isaiah Berlin about Russian thought and culture. Russian Thinkers is his unique meditation on the impact that R...
-
The Nanny State Made Me
Stuart Maconie'He is as funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell' ObserverIt was the spirit of our finest hour, the backbone of our postwar greatness, and it promoted some of the boldest and most b...
-
Henri Matisse
Alastair SookeHenri Matisse by Alastair Sooke an essential guide to one of the 20th century's greatest artists'One January morning in 1941, only a fortnight or so after his seventyfirst birthda...
-
Dear Me
Peter UstinovSir Peter Ustinov's beautifully crafted autobiography is told with exquisite wit and insight. From his birth in April 1921, it spans his extraordinary career as actor, playwright, ...
-
The Enchanted
Charlotte BinghamExciting and dramatic but tender and heartfelt; this is a novel that you will return to again and again. From the million copy and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlotte Bingham...
-
Alan Bennett
Joseph O'MealyAlan Bennett is perhaps best known in the UK for the BBC production of his Talking Heads TV plays, while the rest of the world may recognize him for the film adaptation of his play...
-
English Humour for Beginners
George Mikes'To write a book is hard; to write a funny book is harder; to write a funny book both wise and funny is the prerogative of Mr. Mikes' The TimesIf you want to succeed here you must ...
-
Fire Hawk
Geoffrey ArcherSam Packer of the British Secret Service knows a mission to Iraq is dangerous. But none more dangerous than this one.A whispered secret in a Baghdad hotel lobby leads to his kidnap...
-
Metaphysical Poetry
Colin BurrowA key anthology for students of English literature, Metaphysical Poetry is a collection whose unique philosophical insights are some of the crowning achievements of Renaissance ver...