Alan Bennett
Alan Bennett
Alan Bennettis 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. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration 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 gave up academia, and turned to writing...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth9 May 1934
childhood forms found glad none nostalgia
I do not long for the world as it was when I was a child. I do not long for the person I was in that world. I do not want to be the person I am now in that world then. None of the forms nostalgia can take fits. I found childhood boring. I was glad it was over.
academic apart began certainly clear education fact fallen great left love oxford
I didn't even have a clear idea of why I wanted to go to Oxford - apart from the fact I had fallen in love with the architecture. It certainly wasn't out of some great sense of academic or intellectual achievement. In many ways, my education only began after I'd left university.
express family miners paper rather urge
We were all miners in our family. My father was a miner. My mother is a miner. These are miner's hands, but we were all artists, I suppose, really. But I was the first one who had the urge to express myself on paper rather than at the coalface.
bits countless days outside places school taken took trips visits
The bits I most remember about my school days are those that took place outside the classroom, as we were taken on countless theatre visits and trips to places of interest.
allowed leeway loses teaching
Teachers need to feel they are trusted. They must be allowed some leeway to use their imagination; otherwise, teaching loses all sense of wonder and excitement.
fed history interest partner
that interest comes from my partner Rupert. But I used to do it when I was young and a lot of that fed into The History Boys.
defense defensive everybody game half knows second smaller
We have smaller defensive ends, but they're quick. They'll be OK. Everybody knows their job, and our defense is better this year. If we play better in the second half of the game this year, we'll do better.
broadway film made
If, for instance, we'd made the film after the show had been to Broadway, it would have been exactly the same film but we would have been assured that they would have understood it. We didn't have to do any alterations for Broadway. I was supposed to go a fortnight before it opened to alter anything that was necessary and there was nothing really.
lines born guinness
f they'd been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn't have known they were born if they'd not towed the line!
thinking theatre hierarchy
I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.
successful thinking next
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.
reality thinking play
I had no idea of who could play it, no notion really. Then Richard came to see us but I don't think it was decided at that meeting. The trouble is, as soon as you've chosen somebody it obscures anybody else you might have thought of. It's like going to a place that you've never been to before - you've got a picture of it and then you go there and that picture is totally wiped out by the reality.
school ideas forgotten
I've never forgotten that experience. But I had nobody at school that was either like Hector or Irwin. The masters had no idea what was expected of you in the scholarship exam, so you just had to busk it really.
holy-grail black frost
It [Cambridge] wasn't a holy grail in the sense that I'd never been to Cambridge. But then, when I did go, the contrast between Leeds, which was very black and sooty in those days, and Cambridge, which seemed like something out of a fairystory, in the grip of a hard frost, was just wonderful.