Page "Alan Bennett" Paragraph 9

In his 2005 prose collection Untold Stories Bennett has written candidly and movingly of the mental illness that afflicted his mother and other family members.

Much of his work draws on his Leeds background and while he is celebrated for his acute observations of a particular type of northern speech (" It'll take more than Dairy Box to banish memories of Pearl Harbour "), the range and daring of his work is often undervalued – his television play The Old Crowd includes shots of the director and technical crew, while his stage play The Lady in the Van includes two characters named Alan Bennett.