Alan Bennett
British theatre in the latter half of the twentieth century drew on a generation of writers who moved between stage, screen, and the page with unusual ease. Alan Bennett, born on 9 May 1934 in Armley, emerged from that generation as a playwright, screenwriter, film director, actor, comedian, and diarist — a breadth of occupation that distinguished him from contemporaries who confined themselves to a single form.
Educated at Leeds Modern School, Lawnswood School, and later at Exeter College, Bennett built a practice that moved across dramatic and literary modes. As a playwright he wrote for the stage; as a screenwriter and film director he shaped work for the screen; as a diarist he maintained a separate literary form alongside the rest. That range — from comedy to drama, from performance to the written record — gave his output a texture that few working in English at the same time could match, each form placing its own distinct demands on the practitioner.
His work as a stage actor and comedian placed him, at various points, on the same ground as the material he wrote. This presence on both sides of the work — as writer and as performer — was not common among his contemporaries and gave his theatrical output a character of its own.
Recognition for that work came from several directions. Bennett received the Tony Award for Best Play and the Laurence Olivier Awards, as well as the Society of London Theatre Special Award. He also received the Critics' Circle Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, the Ackerley Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, and the Bodley Medal. Taken together, these honours span stage, screen, and literary achievement, reflecting the full range of the occupations he sustained across a long working life.
Quotes by Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett's insights on:
Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it.
To her, though, nothing could have been more serious, and she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.
The thing I think about is that once you’ve done it, you then start to think about what you’re going to do next. It’s much easier to follow something that’s not been as successful as this.
The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.
What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
I’m not good at precise, coherent argument. But plays are suited to incoherent argument, put into the mouths of fallible people.