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6 unusual facts about Alan Bennett


Madge Hindle

Hindle's big break came when her good friend, playwright Alan Bennett, asked her to appear in his 1966 BBC comedy series On the Margin.

She has appeared in two of Alan Bennett's television plays: Sunset Across the Bay (1975) and Intensive Care (1982).

Steve Nallon

Although Nallon became most famous for providing the voice of Margaret Thatcher on the show, he also voiced many of the show's other characters, including Roy Hattersley, The Queen Mother, Alan Bennett and David Attenborough.

Ted Walker

Walker also wrote plays for Shaun McLaughlin in BBC radio drama and adapted Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows (1995) for TVC (Television Cartoons)' animated production with a voice cast including Alan Bennett, Rik Mayall, Michael Palin and Michael Gambon.

Thomas Mann

:Alan Bennett's play The Habit of Art, in which Benjamin Britten visits W. H. Auden to discuss the possibility of Auden writing the libretto for Britten's opera version of Death in Venice.

York and Lancaster Regiment

One of the characters in Alan Bennett's play The History Boys goes on from school and university to serve in the York and Lancaster Regiment.


Beyond the Fringe

John Bassett, Wadham College, Oxford graduate and assistant to Ponsonby, recommended jazz band mate and rising cabaret talent Dudley Moore, who in turn recommended Alan Bennett, who had been a hit at Edinburgh a few years before.

Charlotte Cornwell

She has worked extensively both in the West End and on the Fringe, and has appeared in the US in several productions, including Richard III and An Enemy of the People opposite Sir Ian McKellen, Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca, Terence McNally's Master Class, Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" (San Francisco Bay Critics' Award), and most recently Alan Bennett's "History Boys" at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.

Joyce Dunbar

Dunbar most well-known series, Mouse and Mole, has been adapted into a twenty-six part television animation series by Grasshopper Productions, with voices lent by Alan Bennett and Richard Briers.

Julie Walters and Friends

Sketches were written by Walters' frequent collaborators, including Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett, Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale.

Meg and Mog

It was produced by Carl Gorham and the series was directed by Roger Mainwood, and featured the voice talents of Alan Bennett as Owl, Fay Ripley as Meg and Phil Cornwell as Mog.

Quote... Unquote

They include: Tom Stoppard, Peter Cook, Peter Ustinov, Judi Dench, Alan Bennett, Denis Healey, David Attenborough, Kingsley Amis, Kenneth Williams, Douglas Adams, John Mortimer, Neil Kinnock, Katharine Whitehorn, Malcolm Muggeridge and Lord George-Brown.

Selling Hitler

However, to the dismay of all, including eminent historians such as Hugh Trevor-Roper (Alan Bennett) who verified the diaries as authentic, it is discovered after the publication of first extract that the diaries are crude forgeries, faked by Stuttgart criminal Konrad Kujau.


see also

Afternoon Off

It stars Henry Man as Lee, with an all star cast almost all of whom are in cameo roles, including Alan Bennett himself, Peter Butterworth, Pete Postlethwaite, Thora Hird, Stan Richards, Janine Duvitski, Anna Massey, Stephanie Cole, Richard Griffiths, Paul Shane, and Sherrie Hewson as Iris.

Andy de la Tour

He has appeared in many films including Plenty, Notting Hill, the Roman Polanski version of Oliver Twist and "44" Chest". His work in television series included The Young Ones, Bottom, Kavanagh QC and The Brief. On stage he has appeared at the National Theatre in Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" and Alan Bennett's "People"