Loads of stuff on the BBC (2 & 4 I think) starting tomorrow night.

I went to the same school as Alan Bennett – Lawnswood (although Mr Chicken will remember it with the same name as Mr Bennett) also John Craven but I doubt he’ll have a night of television devoted to him.

Never mind them.....you can also say that EmmaMur01 went to your school!


People will be well impressed.

No. They'll yawn then fall asleep.

Please, please, Leeds Modern.

John Craven was just a few years in front of me and Alan Bennett was well gone by the time I got there, I wish I could say that I was taught English by the man who taught Alan Bennett but the whole of the English dept had been replaced by fresh-faced trendy young things in the stylee of Simon Dee in the same year that I started there.

I went to see two of Bennett's Talking Heads performances at the Edinburgh Fringe a couple of years ago, done by a small amateur theatre group, the one that Thora Hurd did (A cream cracker under the sofa ???) and the one that Alan Bennett did himself about the man who lives at home with his mum until she finds herself a sugar-daddy - they were both superb and well worth the £4 that the ticket cost me

I once saw him in the Victoria Quarter & was surprised at how tall he was.
I'd always pictured him as being somewhat small & weedy, due too his voice I guess.
A really funny & humane man IMO, I'll certainly be watching.

Leaving the awful 'History Boys' aside I've never read or watched anything by Allan Bennett that I haven't enjoyed.

I think Thora Hird did two Talking Heads - the Cream Cracker under the Sofa one and possibly one where she was looking after her brother while he recovered from a stroke. Every TH was absolutely excellent though.

"Waiting for a Telegram" according to tonights schedule.

I will have to fight the family to watch these tonight - blood will be shed

Just watched the Harrogate Crown Hotel docu with Alan Bennett. Really interesting filmed in 1988 which doesnt seem that long ago but shows us up for the pretentious snobs we are!!.

Have things changed from 1988? I don't think so.

"My mother would make up stories about the people in the room, "Thats the hotel owner" she'd say, "and that must be her nephew", and then the next day she'd see the woman on her own and say "ooh there's the hotel owner, she must have had a tiff with her nephew" forgetting that she'd made the story up all along..."


Classic Alan Bennett, one of those gentle half hours where you just observe and listen...

What a cracking evening.
Funny, whimsical, moving.
I'd forgotten what a wonderful actress Thora Hird was even in her 90s.
Brilliant piece of writing, brilliantly acted.
It reminded me so much of my own mum's last days in her old folks home.

Just watched that one.

Absolutely fantastic.

If you watch that and haven't a tear in your eye at the end of it there's something wrong with you.

My older brother was in the same class as Alan. His father had a butchers shop in Far Headingley not far from Bryan's Fish shop

Its a dry cleaners now but was still a butchers about 10 years back.

Seem to recall they also had a shop in Armley (co-op butchers maybe?).