Alan Bennett

At 90 years old, Alan Bennett has this physical status:

Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and author.

He was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue.

For many years, he taught and researched medieval history at the university.

His appearance 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.

He left academia and went full-time, his first stage play on the coast of 1968. His books include The Madness of George III and its film adaptation, a series of monologues, Talking Heads, the play and subsequent film of The History Boys, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Early life

Bennett was born in Armley, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, on May 9, 1934. Walter Bennett, the younger brother of a Co-op butcher, and his partner Lilian Mary (née Peel), 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). Gordon, his older brother, is three years old.

Before applying for a scholarship at Oxford University, Bennett studied Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his national service. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford, where he obtained his first-class degree in history. He performed comedy with a number of later-winning actors in the Oxford Revue while at Oxford. He remained at the university for many years, serving as a junior lecturer of Medieval History at Magdalen College before deciding, in 1960, that he was not qualified to being an academic.

Personal life

Bennett lived on Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town, London, for 40 years, but his partner Rupert Thomas, the former editor of The World of Interiors magazine, now lives a few minutes' walk away at Primrose Hill. Bennett had a long-term friendship with Anne Davies, his ex housekeeper, long before she died in 2009.

Bennett is an agnostic. He was raised Anglican and gradually "left it [the Church] over the years."

Bennett declined the honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1988 (CBE), and he declined a knighthood in 1996.

Bennett revealed in September 2005 that he had undergone colorectal cancer therapy in 1997, referring to the condition as a "bore." His chances of resurrecting were described as "much less" than 50%, and surgeons had told him they had removed a "rock-bun"-sized tumor. He started Untold Stories (2005), wishing that it would be published posthumously, but his cancer went into remission.

Bennett wrote explicitly about his bisexuality in the autobiographical sketches that make up a significant portion of the book for the first time. Bennett used to ask questions about his sexuality as if a man who has just crawled across the Sahara desert to choose between Perrier or Malvern mineral water.

Bennett declared in October 2008 that he would be donating his entire archive of research papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries, and books to the Bodleian Library, citing a debt he owes to the British welfare state that had afforded him educational opportunities that otherwise could not have afforded.

Bennett endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign for the Labour Party leadership in September 2015. "I think Jeremy Corbyn has given us a good kick in the pants," he said, and the fact that he has done so well shows that people are worried about these topics. You may believe that nobody is concerned about these things, but they are not." "I approve of him," Corbyn said in the October after his election victory. If only because it brings Labour back to what they should be thinking about.

Following Jonathan Miller's death in 2019, he became the only living member of the original Beyond the Fringe quartet, which also included Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

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Career

Bennett, along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook, gained fame after an appearance in the Edinburgh Festival's Beyond the Fringe, with the show continuing in London and New York. He appeared in My Father Knew Lloyd George. The television sketch series On the Margin (1966) was cancelled; rather than save it in the archives, the BBC re-used expensive videotape. However, in 2014, it was announced that audio copies of the complete story had been discovered.

Forty Years On, directed by Patrick Garland, was Bennett's first stage play. Many television, film, and radio plays have been followed by writers, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose, and numerous appearances as an actor.

Bennett has worked on commission and on television, but he never wrote about it. If people don't like it, it's too bad."

His many television appearances include A Day Outing in 1972, A Little Outing in 1977, An Englishman Abroad in 1981, and A Question of Attribution in 1991. But perhaps his best known screen work is the 1988 Talking Heads series of monologues for television, which were later seen at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1992. A decade later, a second group of six Talking Heads appeared.

In 1980, Bennett wrote Enjoying. Despite the excellent cast of Joan Plowright, Colin Blakely, Susan Littler, Philip Sayer, Liz Smith (who replaced Joan Hickson during rehearsals) and Marc Sinden in his first West End role, it barely survived a seven-week performance at the Valiant Theatre. Ronald Eyre helmed the program. During its 2008 UK tour, Enjoy attracted some very positive feedback and then moved to London's West End. Over £1 million in advance ticket sales were generated and the show was even extended to accommodate demand. Alison Steadman, David Troughton, Richard Glaves, Carol Macready, and Josie Walker appeared on the series.

Bennett wrote The Lady in the Van, based on Bennett's encounter with Miss Shepherd, who lived on Bennett's driveway in a string of dilapidated vans for more than 15 years. The London Review of Books first published it in 1989 as an essay. In 1990, he introduced it in book form. Maggie Smith was the protagonist in Maggie Smith's stage play in 1999, and Nicholas Hytner directed it. Alan Bennett is the main protagonist in the stage play. On February 21, 2009, it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, with Maggie Smith reprising her role and Alan Bennett playing himself. He adapted the tale for a 2015 film, with Maggie Smith reprising her role and Nicholas Hytner directing again. Alex Jennings portrays Bennett in two separate versions of Bennett, though Alan Bennett appears in a cameo at the end of the film.

Bennett adapted his 1991 film The Madness of George III for the theater. Bennett's script and the performances of Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren, respectively, were nominated for four Academy Award nominations for Bennett's writing and the appearances. It received the award for best art direction.

Bennett's critically acclaimed The History Boys received three Laurence Olivier Awards in 2005, for Best New Play, Best Actor (Richard Griffiths), and Best Direction (Nicholas Hytner), having previously received Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and Evening Standard Awards for Best Actor and Best Actor. Bennett has also been named on the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre. The History Boys received six Tony Awards on Broadway, including best play, best actor in a production (Richard Griffiths), best performance by a leading actor in a play (Frances de la Tour) and best direction of a play (Nicholas Hytner). In October 2006, The History Boys' film version was released in the United Kingdom. Bennett's 2005 prose collection Untold Stories explored the mental illness that his mother and other family members suffered from.

In late 2009, Nicholas Hytner directed Bennett's The Habit of Art, focusing on the friendship between the poet W. H. Auden and composer Benjamin Britten.

People opened Bennett's play People at the National Theatre in October 2012. Bennett's autobiographical play Cocktail Sticks, an autobiographical play, premiered at the National Theatre in December as part of a double bill with the monologue Hymn. Bennett's long-serving collaborator Nicholas Hytner directed the project. It was well received and relocated to the Duchess Theatre in London's West End, and BBC Radio 4 later modified it for radio broadcasting.

Allelujah!, Bennett's comedic drama about a National Health Service hospital threatened with closure, opened at London's Bridge Theatre in July 2018.

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