Alan Bennett

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Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 9 may 1934 (89 years)
Awards Laurence Olivier Award

Alan Bennett (born 9 May 1934) is an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and author. He was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full-time, his first stage play Forty Years On being produced in 1968.

His work includes The Madness of George III and its film adaptation, the series of monologues Talking Heads, the play and subsequent film The History Boys, and popular audio books, including his readings of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Biography

In September 2005, Bennett revealed that, in 1997, he had undergone treatment for cancer, and described the illness as a "bore". His chances of survival were given as being "much less" than 50%. He began Untold Stories (published 2005) thinking it would be published posthumously, but his cancer went into remission. In the autobiographical sketches which form a large part of the book Bennett writes openly for the first time about his bisexuality (Bennett has had relationships with women as well, although this is only touched upon in Untold Stories). Previously Bennett had referred to questions about his sexuality as like asking a man who has just crawled across the Sahara desert to choose between Perrier or Malvern mineral water.

Bennett lives in Camden Town in London, and shares his home with Rupert Thomas, the editor of World of Interiors magazine. Bennett also had a long-term relationship with his former housekeeper, Anne Davies, until her death in 2009.

In 2010, Bennett described how he was mugged by two women who surreptitiously squirted him with ice cream in Marks & Spencer, Camden Town. As they purported to wipe off the confection with tissues, the robbers stole £1,500 cash he had withdrawn from the bank minutes earlier. Bennett, who initially was grateful the women had helped clean him, said the experience afterwards made him 'less likely to believe in the kindness of strangers'.

Bennett is a lapsed Anglican; raised in the church, he became very religious as a teenager, but has "slowly left it [The Church] over the years," though he still holds a faith, and is often supportive of the restoration of churches through Britain.

Archive
In October 2008 Bennett announced that he was donating his entire archive of working papers, unpublished manuscripts, diaries and books to the Bodleian Library, stating that it was a gesture of thanks repaying a debt he felt he owed to the British welfare state that had given him educational opportunities which his humble family background would otherwise never have afforded.