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(0)Alan Bennett
In this deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading, the Uncommon Reader is none other than Her Majesty the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (J. R. Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett, and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people such as the oleaginous
...4) Four Stories
Alan Bennett, master storyteller, reads four of his highly-acclaimed stories.
The Lady in the Van - An eccentric old lady and her van are told to move on by the council, but a kind homeowner invites her to live in his garden. In this bizarre tale, the homeowner is Alan Bennett and the woman stays for fifteen years. As heard on BBC Radio 4, this edition also includes the short story, Uncle Clarence.
The Clothes They Stood Up In - The Ransomes
...A critically-acclaimed double bill of Alan Bennett plays, originally performed at the National Theatre and adapted for BBC Radio 4.
An Englishman Abroad: It is 1958, and in a squalid flat in Moscow, double-agent Guy Burgess is hiding from the world. When he is visited by actress Coral Browne, he is overjoyed to see someone from his former life in England. Starved for information, Burgess interrogates her about English society gossip, and cajoles
...Michael Gambon is Guy Burgess and Penelope Wilton the actress Coral Browne in Bennett's re-telling of a real-life incident. Whilst touring 'Hamlet' Moscow with the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1958, Browne is astonished to have Burgess appear in her dressing room.
Having disappeared from England in 1951 together with fellow diplomat Donald Maclean, spy Burgess is a wanted man. Bennett's take on the encounter is both poignant and comic, and
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