Sam Leith Sam Leith

Waking up late at the Palace

The Uncommon Reader<br /> by Alan Bennett

The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett

Since The History Boys transferred first to Broadway and then to the cinema, Alan Bennett has made the journey from national treasure to international superstar. The dustwrapper of this droll novella spends two lines on the London gongs that play picked up, and more than five lines on the American awards (‘five New York Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics’ Circle Awards . . . six Tonys including Best Play’), festooned with which he returned to his native Yorkshire. The catalogue of glory reaches a final climax: ‘He was named Reader’s Digest Author of the Year 2005.’ I imagine that would have made Bennett smile when the proofs came through. It’s the award that would make the most sense to one of Bennett’s characters, the one that most fits into his distinctive world.

The Queen also, definitely, fits in. We should not forget that it was Bennett’s A Question of Attribution that first and so brilliantly made Prunella Scales the Queen. For most of us, she remained Queen (just as Morgan Freeman is God) right up until Helen Mirren, at very long last, dethroned her this year.

Here, anyway, she is again. The conceit of the story is that, while walking her corgis round the back of the palace, she chances on the City of Westminster Travelling Library van parked outside the kitchens. Curious, she pokes her head in and meets a kitchen-boy called Norman Seakins, gawky, gay and ginger-haired (‘Saw this extraordinary creature this afternoon,’ the Duke of Edinburgh later remarks. ‘Ginger-stick-in-waiting.’). Inasmuch as HM can fall into conversation with a normal person, she falls into conversation with Norman. She takes a book away, then another and another. She starts, late in life and with growing enthusiasm, to read. Norman, promoted from the kitchen, becomes her amanuensis and literary adviser.

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