Bøker av Alan Bennett

After two elegiac comedies about the decline of old England, Mr Bennett has now written a gorgeously vulgar but densely plotted farce that is a downright celebration of sex and the human body... a combination of hurtling action with verbal brilliance. Guardian

Reflections on Covid and confinement from the unparalleled pen of Alan Bennett.

***Available for pre-order now***The gorgeous, pocket-sized edition of the two brand-new Talking Heads***As seen on BBC1 and iPlayer*** 'Given the opportunity to revisit the characters from Talking Heads I've added a couple more, both of them ordinary women whom life takes by surprise.

Four devilishly clever comedians were responsible for this madhouse of hilarity in both London and New York: Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore. Their skits include one about an impassioned preacher whose emotion carries him so far from the text that he cant find his way back. Theres a delicious spoof on Shakespeare in beautifully faked speech, and a couple of panel scenes, in one, three experts on nuclear war clobber the subject to death. And these are but samples of a grab bag of highly intellectual fun.

Features none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. The consequence is surprising, mildly shocking and funny.

'Thinking Betty was in the bath Graham was watching a late-night programme on Channel 4 called Footballers with Their Shirts Off when she unexpectedly came in on the trail of the hairdryer. "I didn't know you were interested in football," said Betty.'No one must ever find out that Graham is 'not the marrying sort'.

- What were you in life?- In life, as you put it, I was a schoolmaster. The Beth, an old fashioned cradle-to-grave hospital serving a town on the edge of the Pennines, is threatened with closure as part of an NHS efficiency drive.

This is a comic, ironic look at patronizing bureaucracy. The social services department of the local council is preparing a register of the elderly and eager June Potter is despatched. Mam and Dad are in their 60s, but they are perfectly able-bodied and have no intention of being registered.

In 1974, Alan Bennett encountered Miss Mary Shepherd, an elderly eccentric who was living in a van in the street near his home in Camden Town. He eventually allowed her to park her van in his garden, the idea being that she would stay three months - but those three months extended to fifteen years.

Green FormsDoris and Doreen are comfortably installed in an obscure department of a large organization. On a normal day they keep busy by flirting with nice Mr Tidmarsh in Appointments or pursuing their feud over a plug with Mr Cunliffe in Personnel. This is not a normal day. Someone has an eye on them and a shadow is falling across their tranquil lives. Are they about to be fired?A Visit From Miss ProtheroMr Dodsworth has recently retired. Sitting at home, he is contemplating his life and achievements with quiet satisfaction. There is a sharp ring at the door. His former secretary has come to ruin it all. Ironic wit and compassion mark this touchingly real story.

Alan Bennett's A Life Like Other People's is a poignant family memoir offering a portrait of his parents' marriage and recalling his Leeds childhood, Christmases with Grandma Peel, and the lives, loves and deaths of his unforgettable aunties Kathleen and Myra.

Muriel's husband Ralph has just died, leaving her well off, until her son Giles invests the money unwisely. Eventually, neglected by Giles and her disturbed daughter Margaret, Muriel ends the play alone and poor, determined to cheerfully "soldier on". From the stage version of "Talking Heads".

Graham, a middle-aged bachelor, emotionally retarded and chronically dependent on his mother, finds life difficult enough at the best of times. When Mother meets an old flame and seems set to marry him, however, Graham''s old insecurities rear their ugly heads again. Fate, eventually, rescues Graham and he resumes his normal life of banal muddle under his mother''s amnesiac tyranny.

A British Labour M.P., ten years into his second marriage, feels tethered in a time of change. He is distrustful on the one hand of the "mawkish mentality" of the young and, on the other, of the encroaching motorway life of the middle aged who can look forward to nothing more than the fairly imminent end of a not so very interesting road. "The play is a small jewel of bewilderment and regret." - London Sunday Times

The tales of Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad. When Mole goes boating with the Water Rat instead of spring-cleaning, he discovers a new world. As well as the river and the Wild Wood, there is Toad's craze for fast travel which leads him and his friends on a whirl of trains, barges, gipsy caravans and motor cars and even into battle.

Writers like to elude their public, lead them a bit of a dance. In this personal anthology, the author has chosen over seventy poems by six well-loved poets, discussing the writers and their verse in his customary conversational style through anecdote, shrewd appraisal and spare but telling biographical detail.

Maggie Smith stars in this BBC radio adaptation of Alan Bennett's highly acclaimed autobiographical stage playAn eccentric old lady moves into a quiet street in Camden Town.

The screenplay for the film of the same name.

Includes tales such as "The Shielding of Mrs Forbes", and "The Greening of Mrs Donaldson".