Alan Bennett’s first play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968; his most recent, Allelujah! in 2018. The Choral, for which he wrote the screenplay, was released in 2025. Bennett’s diary for 1983 appeared in the LRB, and we carried his diary every year after that until 2023. He now claims his life is so dull he won’t inflict it on LRB readers. The Lady in the Van was first published in the paper, and the LRB has also carried some of his Talking Heads monologues; short stories, such as ‘The Uncommon Reader’; pieces of memoir; and reviews, including ‘The Wrong Blond’, on W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman, and ‘Alas! Deceived’, on Philip Larkin.
2 February 2004. There is nothing that has not been said. Some notes, though. Revealing, since his vanity was the main issue, were the settings in which Alastair Campbell chose to present himself: two Palladian interiors that would not have shamed a head of state. His simple joy at the vindication of the truth about as convincing as Jonathan Aitken’s dedication to it.
Almost the only...
1 January 2003. A Christmas card from Eric Korn:
This is the one about JesusAnd his father who constantly sees usLike CCTV from aboveBut they call it heavenly love;And the other a spook or a birdOr possibly merely a Word.Rejoice! We are ruled thru’ infinityBy this highly dysfunctional Trinity!
10 January. In George Lyttelton’s Commonplace Book it’s recorded that Yeats told Peter...
The lounge of a large seaside hotel. A middle-aged Miss Plunkett sits in an upright easy chair, the chair beside it is empty. A middle-aged Mr Mortimer approaches her.
MR MORTIMER: Is this anyone’s chair?
MISS PLUNKETT: Not this minute.
MR MORTIMER: And I’m not … trespassing on your preserves? ‘Invading your space’, as I believe they say nowadays?
MISS PLUNKETT:...
4 January. A Christmas letter from Cami Elbow, wife of Peter Elbow, an American college friend who teaches English at Amherst:
Life in Amherst is very placid. Even grammatically correct. In December the town decided to encourage shoppers to patronise the downtown stores with free parking. They ordered plastic bags to cover up the parking meters but the bags arrived with the message wrongly...
In the 1940s within a mile or so of where we lived in Armley in Leeds there were at least half a dozen cinemas. Nearest was the Picturedrome on Wortley Road but others were just a walk or a tramride away – the Lyric down Tong Road, the Clifton at Bramley, the Palace off Stanningley Road and the Western a bit further on. And without ever being a dedicated filmgoer I could have graded them...
Alan Bennett reads from his 2018 diary, in which he puts on a new play and finds himself on someone’s arm.
Alan Bennett reads from his 2017 diary, in which he finds his métier at last.
Alan Bennett reads from his 2016 diary, in which he wonders what ’memes‘ are and goes to Venice.
Alan Bennett reads from his diary for 2015, in which he shouts at the top of his voice and works the red carpet with Alex Jennings.
Alan Bennett explains his objections to private education.
Alan Bennett reads from his 2014 diary, in which he looks after a dog and his memoir, The Lady in the Van, is made into a film.
Alan Bennett reads from his 2013 diary, in which he refuses to pay his bills and celebrates the National Theatre’s 50th birthday.
Alan Bennett reads from his 2012 diary, in which he appears on Family Guy and starts rehearsals for a new play.
Alan Bennett reads from his 2011 diary, in which he considers the banana skin and is mistaken for ‘another Alan’.
Alan Bennett introduces his latest play, The Habit of Art, and responds to questions from the audience about the play, and about his life and work to date.
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