House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries

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Bennett’s diaries, which he has been publishing since the early 1980s, are full of these “absurd and inexplicable” moments.

Alan Bennett has been one of our leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. Our need for ritual is primordial, and embracing its logic can help us connect, find meaning and discover who we are. The History Boys won Evening Standard, Critics' Circle and Olivier awards, as well as the South Bank Award. He may clearly be increasingly frail but, even in lockdown, Alan Bennett retains his customary waspish wit in the latest tranche of his diaries ― Choice --This text refers to the hardcover edition.As my Mrs often says, 'if only it were longer' - Only 44 actual (smallish) pages of musings, I've read thicker takeaway menu's, however, none offering anything as delicious as what Mr Bennett serves up here. Contemplating the current regime of hand-washing and elbow-bumping pitches him straight back to the 1940s when the unfortunate family next door succumb to TB. In Ritual, pioneering scientist Dimitris Xygalatas leads an enlightening tour through one of the most shadowy realms of human behaviour.

With Rupert now working from home my life is much easier, as I get regular cups of tea and a lovely hot lunch. Generally, I worship at the altar of Alan Bennett but this very slight volume was a big disappointment. Bennett is such a master of the mundane I actually would have relished reading about what he did in that first lockdown when the world shrank for everyone. You certainly divided the audience there with your anti Brexit, anti current government sentiments and provided much food for thought. The book is his personal diary of his time during the lockdown, and he seems to have survived it splendidly.Now eighty-six and arthritic, he has swapped his bicycle for a wheelchair, but he gave us two new monologues for the revamp of Talking Heads in 2020 – the royalties from which he donated to NHS charities. His television series Talking Heads has become a modern-day classic, as have many of his works for the stage, including Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, The Madness of King George Ill (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George) and an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Some really touching and poignant moments in here; a few bits that stand out are when Bennett has a small interaction with a stranger sweeping the street that “makes his morning” (such interactions being rare at that point), a footnote in a poem in LRB triggering a vivid childhood memory from 1941 (genuinely fascinating and one of my favourite things is when a tiny snippet evokes mass nostalgia), and when he struggles to explain how his glasses have broken to an optician because of the lack of speaking he’s done to other people during 2020 (definitely remember making some pretty awful blunders for a good few months until I worked out how to socialise again). The news that the cast and crew of the new Talking Heads series have agreed to take only a nominal fee and donate the profits to the NHS gives him a rare rush of pleasure in a world dominated by the bleak economics of Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. The fact that Her Majesty could probably not manage this today is a reminder of how swiftly treacherous advanced old age can be.

Bought today and have no idea when this was published but it feels just like sitting with Alan Bennett for a chat. So, my 4* rating reflects how good these 45 pages of musings were but don't reflect my disappointment! Lacking any real insight or substance this collection of diary entries will likely leave you feeling slightly short-changed. This radical essay explores patriarchy and capitalism’s impact on beauty ideals, and inspires us to embrace our own disobedient bodies. Where this tortured restraint does not reach, though, is into Bennett’s ethical worldview which remain as richly communitarian as ever.

Perhaps to be expected as the author gets older, many of the entries sparked various reminiscences in him, which were interesting.

The film of The Lady in the Van starring Maggie Smith was released in 2015, sending Bennett's memoir of the same name to the top of the bestseller list for nine weeks. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. TheNotebook by Roland Allen is a gorgeously illustrated cultural history of the humble notebook, from the bustling markets of medieval Florence to the quiet studies of our greatest thinkers.

As always, I found Alan Bennett's writing style and social observations delightful, poignant and amusing but the book is so short that I felt a real sense of disappointment when I reached the end of his reflections, leaving me with a feeling of having been 'cheated'! Caustic and swinging between nostalgia and criticism of the present political system, it's only let down marginally by the surprisingly boring 'driving through Leeds' coda. On 26 March of that first year, Nicholas Hytner rings with the exciting news that the BBC would like to record a new version of Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues of 1988 because it is exactly the sort of thing that could be done on Zoom. It probably never occurred to the hollering neighbours that their joyful noise for the NHS might be misconstrued as directed at one elderly, slightly famous playwright. Illustration: Barry Falls/The Observer View image in fullscreen ‘His writing remains as deft and seamless as ever’ … Alan Bennett.