Understanding Alan Bennett

de Peter Wolfe

In August 1960 four young men who never planned to have show business careers launched a revue in Edinburgh comprising skits and parodies, songs and monologues, on subjects such as nuclear holocaust, the cold war, and capital punishment. The review, called Beyond the Fringe, made instant celebrities of the group - Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook. Of this now legendary troupe Bennett had the most dubious professional future in the mid-1960s. Yet in January 1992 this theatrical genius had two plays running in London's West End and had recently acted in one of his own teleplays. His suite of monologues, Talking Heads, was also opening in London's Comedy Theatre. In Understanding Alan Bennett, Peter Wolfe conveys Bennett's originality, complexity of thought, and creative vigor while examining Bennett in his various roles as actor, director, playwright, and lyricist.