Tag Archives: Alan Bennett

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Reviewer: Abbie Rippon ‘Why must a play be such a performance?’ argues Neil, the writer of Caliban’s Day. The cast are rehearsing for an upcoming production which explores the life of WH Auden and his collaborations with Benjamin Britten, and The Habit of Art is the play within which this play falls. Confused yet? Don’t be. ...

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Adam Penford Reviewer: Dave Smith As Adam Penford’s first season at the helm of Nottingham Playhouse draws to a close, there seems to be a new air of confidence about the place. And what better way to cement that than with a revival of one of Britain’s more celebrated playwright’s more celebrated plays, featuring the sort ...

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Reviewer: Selwyn Knight Neil has meticulously researched his latest play, Caliban’s Day, in which he imagines a meeting between poet W. H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten in 1973, shortly before the death of each and at the time Britten was writing Death in Venice. Today, the director can’t make it so the rehearsal ...

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Reviewer: Alice Fowler Which is more powerful, music or words? The poet W.H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten debate this point in Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art and, unsurprisingly, agree to differ. Bennett stages an imagined meeting between the two great men in 1972, rekindling an old friendship at a point when both ...

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Reviewer: Michael Hootman The Habit of Art sees Alan Bennett stake his claim to the same theatrical territory inhabited by Tom Stoppard. Habit is very much a play of ideas. Or, to put it more bluntly, a play of too many ideas. It’s a play-within-a-play which examines the very idea of theatrical devices whilst ...

Writer: Alan Bennett Director: Philip Franks Designer: Adrian Linford Reviewer: Ron Simpson Aside from his wonderful monologues, Alan Bennett tends to write plays that are not what they seem, made up of seemingly irreconcilable elements: even the perennially popular History Boys goes off at what seems to be a bizarre tangent with a crippled presenter of television history shows. When ...

Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art, a play within a play based on a fictional meeting between poet W.H Auden and composer Benjamin Britten, premiered at the National Theatre back in November 2009 with the production going on to tour in the Autumn of 2010. This year, the Original Theatre Company and York Theatre Royal will present the first ever ...

Writer – Alan Bennett Directors: James Brining, Amy Leach & John R Wilkinson Reviewer: Jay Nuttall It has been thirty years since the BBC commissioned a series of single voice plays from Leeds playwright Alan Bennett for BBC 2. These televisual treats became iconic, won BAFTAs, spawned a second volume of monologues and have been performed in theatres ever since. ...