Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is an award-winning British author, actor, dramatist and screenwriter.

Bennett studied history at Exeter College, Oxford and went on to work as a lecturer in medieval history at Oxford University, before becoming a full-time writer and actor.

Bennett’s extensive oeuvre spans from writing for the stage, television, radio and screen to fiction and memoir.

His best-known work includes a highly acclaimed series of dramatic monologues written for BBC television titled Talking Heads (1988), which were later adapted for radio and published in print. In 2020, the BBC remade the original ten monologues, along with two brand new stories, also published as a book titled Two Besides (2020).

Bennett’s other masterpieces include his 2007 novella The Uncommon Reader – a story where the Queen develops a keen taste for literature – and The Lady In The Van (1990), Bennett’s autobiographical memoir of a woman who parked her dilapidated van on his driveway and stayed for 15 years. Bennett adapted the story for the stage in 1999 and on screen in the 2015 eponymous film, starring Dame Maggie Smith. Bennett has adapted several of his stage plays as award-winning films, including The Madness of King George III (1994) and The History Boys (2006).