My favourite Alan Bennett story dates from when his play The Lady in the Van was performed in London. The piece includes two Alan Bennetts, one to take part in the action, the other to narrate. One was played by Nick Farrell, a neighbour of ours, who had agreed to do it on condition that he would be free to attend the birth of his first child. For some reason there was no understudy, so when Nick’s wife went to hospital a chap in black tie appeared on stage before the curtain rose. ‘Owing to indisposition,’ he said — an odd choice of words in the circumstances — ‘the part of Alan Bennett will be played tonight by Mr Alan Bennett.’ And there was the playwright himself.
Of course the real Alan Bennett hadn’t memorised the text, so he was the only performer who had to read from the book. But it was a very Alan Bennett moment: the one person who couldn’t convincingly take the part was Alan Bennett. He could be Alan Bennett but he could not perform Alan Bennett; watching Alan Bennett as Alan Bennett, the audience could not entirely suspend their disbelief.
This was an underlying theme in the BBC2 programme Being Alan Bennett (Saturday). He came over as an exceptionally thoughtful and kindly person, which I think we already guessed. In his celebrated diaries the only shafts are reserved for people he doesn’t know, politicians and tabloid journalists mainly. But, towards the end of the programme, he said runically, ‘I feel shackled by the notion they have of me of being a nice person.’ Does he really feel shackled? Was there part of him that wanted us to see the inner curmudgeon? Does he never yell at dry-cleaners who promised to have his suit ready, now he really needs it? Were there tense conversations with the director? ‘I hope you got me on my bike, flipping a V-sign at the taxi driver who cut me up!’
‘No, Alan,’ says the director wearily. ‘It’s not that kind of show. Now, our next shoot is with your local WI. They adore you, so be a darling and start twinkling…’ He seemed anxious to depict writing as just another chore to be done: start at 10.30, work to lunch, nap after lunch, write till 5, go shopping, do another hour, and so on. The habit of art, to coin a phrase, which also happens to be the title of his latest play, about Auden and Britten plodding on in old age. Others might talk about the habit of teaching, or the habit of bus driving. He said he thought it might be easier simply to be a writer than to have the hard work of writing, and kinder to the public, too: ‘They prefer what they’ve got to what they might be given.’ Appearance and reality: it seems to be a constant choice.
There was much elaborate modesty. Heading to the WI, he said there was much competition for the village hall — ‘I’ve been bumped three times, for rival attractions.’ Really? He has given all his papers to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, since no one else had asked. ‘One offer in 40 years makes me seem a kind of bibliographical wallflower.’
He noted that the material would be covered in rings from cups of tea and jam stains. Of course. Would he ever say, ‘I hope they don’t mind the caviar smudges and the splashes of Hine XSOP’?
Of course there were sublime moments — Bennett hasn’t just got an ear for dialogue, but can also detect its essential lunacy. He recounted a line he’d written for Julie Walters, set in a waiting room. ‘They’ve sent my sputum to Newcastle for tests,’ she says with pride.
‘Why Newcastle?’ asks another patient.
‘It’s regional unemployment. They sent my sister-in-law’s urine to Clitheroe.’
We had not a glimpse of his long-term partner. Quite right, too — why should his privacy be invaded? But then nobody’s privacy was invaded, least of all Alan Bennett’s. What we were getting might have been titled Being the Alan Bennett the Public Loves. Fine. It was very entertaining and very appealing. But you knew he was still reading from the book.
Small Island (BBC1, Sunday) was elegant. From the moment Hortense arrives from Jamaica dressed as if for a tea dance, down to the crisp RAF uniforms, the couples strolling around the loveliest parts of Kingston before a picnic that E.M. Forster might have described. Even the buttocks in the love-making scene heaved with a measured elegance. I realised that the BBC, having been hectored for running too many costume dramas, had made an extended spoof — life for immigrants in the war years, as Jane Austen would have told it.
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