Алан Беннетт – лучшие книги

Если бы собаки не залаяли, как бешеные, на незнакомый фургон у дверей дворцовой кухни, королева никогда не узнала бы о еженедельных визитах Вестминстерской передвижной библиотеки. Но, поднявшись по ступенькам фургона, чтобы извиниться за поднятый собаками шум, она, в конце концов, выбрала роман полузабытой писательницы Айви Комптон-Бернетт. Чтение не влекло королеву, но воспитание не позволило оставить книгу недочитанной, а затем, чтобы не показаться невежливой, она взяла еще одну. Вторая, выбранная более удачно, пробудила у Ее Величества страсть к чтению, со временем ставшую настолько сильной, что из-за нее королева стала пренебрегать…

Квартиру респектабельной супружеской четы обворовывают подчистую, и внезапно под ногами людей, которые казались счастливыми и довольными, словно разверзается бездна – когда супруги лишились привычного комфорта, вещи, а вместе с ними и вся жизнь, оказываются призрачным фасадом, за которым прячутся скука и пустота. И чудесный возврат украденного уже не может вернуть людям прежней уверенности, что все в порядке.

«Вторая молодость миссис Доналдсон» - повесть одного из самых известных современных английских сатириков Алана Беннетта (1934). Вдова 55-ти лет и для заработка, и для заполнения душевной пустоты устраивается на работу в труппу ложных больных, на которых студенты-медики овладевают азами профессии. Попутно она сдает пустующую комнату, впрочем, за своеобразную и небезгрешную плату. Так или иначе, но ей удается испытать вторую молодость.

An unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university. A maverick English teacher at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher. A headmaster obsessed with results; a history teacher who thinks he's a fool.

In Alan Bennett's new play, staff room rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how you teach it; about education and its purpose.

The History Boys premiered at the National in May 2004.

This is a collection of diaries, recollections and book reviews - including several old favourites, such as "The Lady in the Ban" and various "LRB" diaries - which work as a whole to create a portrait of the writer.

A critically acclaimed double bill of Alan Bennett plays, adapted for BBC Radio. An Englishman Abroad - It is 1958, and in a squalid flat in Moscow, double-agent Guy Burgess is hiding from the world. When he is visited by actress Coral Browne, he is overjoyed to see someone from his former life in England. Starved for information, Burgess interrogates her about English society gossip. A Question of Attribution - In 1956, Sir Anthony Blunt - pillar of the Establishment and respected Knight of the Realm - is working as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. Perfectly at home in the corridors of Buckingham Palace, he frequently encounters Her Majesty as he works on her paintings, and has a special fondness for one particular Titian. However, there is one small problem: the painting, like Blunt himself, is a fake. Is the Queen aware that her enigmatic servant might also be other than he seems? Poignant and moving, these two brand new adaptations feature Simon Callow, Brigit Forsyth, Edward Petherbridge and Prunella Scales.

This is a collection of Alan Bennett's prose. The title piece is a poignant family memoir with an account of the marriage of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the uncovering of a long-held family secret. Also included are essays, reviews, lectures and reminiscences. "Untold Stories" is Alan Bennett's first collection of prose since "Writing Home" and takes in all his major writings over the last ten years. The title piece is a poignant family memoir with an account of the marriage of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the uncovering of a long-held family secret. Also included are his much celebrated diaries for the years 1996 to 2004, as well as essays, reviews, lectures and reminiscences ranging from childhood trips to the local cinema and a tour around Leeds Art Gallery to reflections on writing, honours and his Westminster Abbey eulogy for Thora Hird. At times heartrending and at others extremely funny, "Untold Stories" is a matchless and unforgettable anthology.

Father! Father! Burning Bright, the savage satire on a dying man's family reaction as he still asserts control over them from the hospital bed. The Clothes They Stood Up In, the painful story of what happens to an elderly couple when their flat is stripped completely bare. The Laying on of Hands, a memorial service for a masseur to the famous that goes horribly wrong. The Lady in the Van, the true story of the eccentric old lady and her van who are invited by a homeowner to live in his garden. The homeowner is Alan Bennett and she stays for fifteen years. It became a West End hit, starring Maggie Smith. Like everything Bennett does, these stories are playful, witty and painfully observant of ordinary people's foibles. They all have brilliant twists, are immensely entertaining and highly moral. And all are modern classics.

Центральная часть пьесы - вымышленная встреча У. Х. Одена с Бенджамином Бриттеном в период, когда Бриттен сочинял оперу "Смерть в Венеции". Сам же сюжет о встрече пожилых мэтров - это вымышленная пьеса "День Калибана", которую репетируют в Национальном театре. По ходу репетиции актеры периодически выходят из роли, чтобы обсудить происходящее с Автором и помощником режиссёра Кэй, и сами раскрываются, как персонажи.
В своей пьесе Алан Беннет вдумчиво и остроумно комментирует и драматическое искусство, и литературное и музыкальное творчество.

Alan Bennett's classic story about Queen Elizabeth II
What would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story.
The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive. The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.

Alan Bennett sealed his reputation as the master of observation with this series of 12 groundbreaking monologues, originally filmed for BBC Television. At once darkly comic, tragically poignant and wonderfully uplifting, Talking Heads is widely regarded as a modern classic. This edition, which contains the complete collection of Talking Heads, as well as his earlier monologue, A Woman of No Importance, is a celebration of Alan Bennett's finest work.

В сборник вошли остросюжетные произведения популярного английского беллетриста А. Беннета. Он твердо верил, что литература должна быть доступной для всех людей, и сожалел о засилье литературных клик и элит. С начала своей писательской карьеры в 1898 году и до своей смерти, в 1931 году, он написал 34 романа, семь томов рассказов, 13 пьес (некоторые в соавторстве).

In 1974, the homeless Miss Shepherd moved her broken down van into Alan Bennett's garden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. And Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord. And yet she lived there for fifteen years.
This account of those years was first published in 1989 in the London Review of Books. The play premiered in 1999, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Dame Maggie Smith, who reprise their roles in this new film adaptation. Shot on location at Bennett's house, Alex Jennings plays the author, alongside household names including Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent and Dominic Cooper.

Alan Bennett reads his own diaries from two of his bestselling memoirs, ‘Writing Home’ and Untold Stories’. Available for the first time in one collection are these two volumes: ‘Diaries 1980-1990’ and ‘Untold Stories: The Diaries’.
‘Diaries 1980-1990’: The eighties were a busy time for Alan Bennett, playwright, actor and diarist. As well as troubles with theatre tours and critics, he also covers the major events of the time: the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher and the murder of John Lennon. Taken from Alan Bennett’s bestselling book, ‘Writing Home’, this keenly viewed history of the decade confirms Bennett as one of life’s great observers – clear-eyed, compassionate and funny. As heard on BBC Radio 4.

‘Untold Stories: The Diaries’: Alan Bennett’s diaries from ‘Untold Stories’ covers the years 1997 – 2004 and are a collection of witty, yet poignant recollections. Whether appreciating the simple pleasures of nature, or commenting on religion, politics or the arts, his observations are incisive, amusing and yet always meaningful.