Alan Bennett has been one of our leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. 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 George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George), and an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows.
At the National Theatre, London, The History Boys won numerous awards, including Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, an Olivier for Best New Play, and the South Bank Award. On Broadway, The History Boys won five New York Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics' Circle Awards, a New York Drama Critics' Award, and six Tonys. The Habit of Art opened at the National in 2009 ; in 2012, People, as well as the two short plays Hymn and Cocktail Sticks, was also staged there.
His collection of prose Writing Home was a number one bestseller. Untold Stories won the PEN/Ackerley Prize for autobiography, 2006. Recent works are The Uncommon Reader, Smut : Two Unseemly Stories, Keeping On Keeping On, and Two Besides : A Pair of Talking Heads.
At the National Theatre, London, The History Boys won numerous awards, including Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, an Olivier for Best New Play, and the South Bank Award. On Broadway, The History Boys won five New York Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics' Circle Awards, a New York Drama Critics' Award, and six Tonys. The Habit of Art opened at the National in 2009 ; in 2012, People, as well as the two short plays Hymn and Cocktail Sticks, was also staged there.
His collection of prose Writing Home was a number one bestseller. Untold Stories won the PEN/Ackerley Prize for autobiography, 2006. Recent works are The Uncommon Reader, Smut : Two Unseemly Stories, Keeping On Keeping On, and Two Besides : A Pair of Talking Heads.
