Whether it is as a screenwriter, a playwright, a memoirist, or—occasionally—an actor, Alan Bennett's gentle, wry observations of life have made him one of Britain's best-loved and most famous authors. The son of a butcher in Leeds, Yorkshire, Bennett first rose to fame as a member of the wildly popular satirical revue, Beyond the Fringe, in the 1960s (with Dudley Moore, Peter Cooke, and Jonathan Miller). A substantial success both in the West End and on Broadway (where it enjoyed a two-year run), Bennett also wrote for the show, helping to start the English Satire revolution.
His first stage play was Forty Years On was produced in 1968 and starring John Gielgud. Other well-known stage plays include Kafka's Dick, The Wind In The Willows, and The Madness of George III.
His first work for television was a sketch show, On the Margin, and he also wrote the television series Fortunes of War. His first television play was A Day Out, followed by several more television plays, five for the BBC, published as Objects of Affection and Other Plays for TV, and five for London Weekend Television, published as The Writer in Disguise. His two series of monologues for television, Talking Heads 1 and Talking Heads 2, proved Bennett to be the master of television monologue, a genre he had first anticipated in A Woman Of No Importance—his first play starring a single actress.
Alan Bennett has also written for radio, including The Lady In The Van, an autobiographical memoir of a deranged woman who parked her car in his garden and stayed for 15 years; and films, including A Private Function, Parson's Pleasure, Prick Up Your Ears, and The Madness of King George, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation (the film received three other nominations and an Oscar for Best Art Direction).
His latest play, The History Boys (2004), which garnered two Evening Standard Awards, two Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards, three Laurence Olivier Awards (he has five altogether), six TONY Awards, and is now a major motion picture took London and New York by storm.
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