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Shop nowAlan Bennett: Diaries
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Learn moreClassic memoirs from the acclaimed English actor, author, playwright, and screenwriter
Alan Bennett is one of the country's most celebrated and best-loved authors. This unmissable collection of diaries and memoirs brings together for the first time Telling Tales, Diaries: 1980-1990, the autobiographical section of Untold Stories, which covers the period 1997-2004, and Keeping On Keeping On: The Diaries 2005-2014.
In his earliest collection of diaries, Alan Bennett offers a fascinating insight into his life in the eighties, working on location for his early films and enjoying life at home in Camden. In the diaries of Untold Stories, he enjoys the simple pleasures of nature and wonders about the state of religion and politics at the end of the twentieth century. In Keeping On Keeping On, he looks back at a busy decade that saw him write four highly acclaimed plays, reflects on his life with his partner, Rupert Thomas, and considers his lately found status as 'kindly, cosy and essentially harmless'. Telling Tales, meanwhile, provides ten childhood snapshots and reminiscences about his early years-charting his development from a schoolboy in Leeds to a doubtful agnostic teen, as well as his undergraduate life at the University of Oxford.
With wit, wisdom, sharp social commentary and perceptive impressions, Alan Bennett's memoirs and diaries are a joy to discover, and a delight to hear again. For those who want to listen to Alan Bennett read Untold Stories in its complete form, Alan Bennett: Untold Stories is also available from BBC Audio.
Originally broadcast on Radio 4:
4 June - 15 June 2001 (Telling Tales)
10 October - 14 October 1994 (Diaries 1980-1990)
10 October - 14 October 2005 (Untold Stories)
24 October - 4 November 2016 (Keeping On Keeping On: The Diaries, 2005-2014)
Production credits
Read by Alan Bennett
Music by George Fenton
Produced by Liz Allard (Telling Tales)
Abridged by Pat McLoughlin
Produced by Gillian Hush (Diaries 1980-1990)
Abridged and produced by Gordon House (Untold Stories)
Abridged and produced by Gordon House (Keeping On Keeping On: The Diaries, 2005-2014)
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd
Alan Bennett's 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, The Madness of George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George) and an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. The History Boys won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the South Bank Award.
Alan Bennett's 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, The Madness of George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George) and an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. The History Boys won the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, The Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and the South Bank Award.