Tag Archives: Alan Bennett

Reviewer: Simon Topping The first half of the evening kicks off with an address from Joanna Neary’s repressed housewife alter ego, Celia. Modelled on actress Celia Johnson’s character in Brief Encounter, Neary captures the clipped modulated voice and subjugated manner of a put-upon spouse incredibly well. There is a sprinkling of Alan Bennett-style tragedy, as the audience learns from Celia’s ...

Creators: Library Theatre Touring Company Reviewer: Simon Topping Alan Bennett’s original television series of Talking Heads has just crept over the age of thirty and while a lot of the world he writes about has begun to, or has long disappeared, the monologues remain a firm favourite to perform. Bed Among the Lentils tells the story of Susan, a frustrated ...

Creator: Julia Knight Reviewer: Simon Topping Maddy North shot to fame by performing as Lancastrian comedy legend Victoria Wood (or VW as Maddy calls her) in a talent show. For several years she has been performing as a tribute up and down the country but now, as her star wains, she is a crisis point. As she auditions for a ...

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 ...