A national treasure? That’s not how wry, sardonic, self-deprecating Alan Bennett sees it. In fact at one point, a soi-disant “connoisseur of embarrassment”, he remarks, in all seriousness, that he wishes he weren’t so “celebrated” because it makes it difficult to have normal conversations with people. However, simply because he’s now 92 and frail, don’t ever – ever – assume that our most illustrious playwright and author is a fluffy old man. Anything but.
I’ve seen almost all the Bennett plays somewhere or other over the years and have pounced on the short stories and diaries whenever they’ve appeared. Like millions of others I am hooked by the sharp, preceptive understatement and the jokes. This latest (final?) set of diaries covers the period from 2016-2024 when he celebrated his 90th birthday. Asked by the BBC to comment on assisted dying he replies: “Too close the unassisted sort to be keen on it”.
He writes randomly, making observations about what’s going on around him so Brexit, Covid and an assortment of Prime Ministers frequent the mix. He also describes the minutiae of his daily life with Rupert Thomas, his much younger, adored partner. Rupert looks after him although there’s also a housekeeper/carer named Milly. He and Rupert live partly in Primrose Hill and partly in Yorkshire. Often he’s tired or unwell. Sometimes his diary entry will be just a short sentence or stray thought from an alert mind which is still frisky. “Sex? Infrequent. Is that one word or two?” (Yes, I had to think about that too.)
He reads – mostly biography and non-fiction, rarely novels – and complains that some volumes are too heavy to carry up the stairs, which he now needs – literally – to climb, hand over hand. He and Rupert frequent antique shops and buy what they fancy. Rupert Thomas edited Homes and Interiors for over 20 years and now curates exhibitions. Their shared artistic interests are like glue. Classical music is firmly in the mix too but they also go to Waitrose and garden centres.
Inevitably given Bennett’s age there are many funerals in the eight years covered by this latest volume of diaries. Maggie Smith, for example was a dear friend. And Jonathan Miller dated from Beyond the Fringe days. Barry Cryer would phone him most weeks just to tell him a joke. The gossipy bits are fun too. Chatting to Judi Dench after a funeral he reminds her of a birthday gift she’d given him decades ago – a first edition, autographed Philip Larkin volume. He told her that in the unlikely event of her ever finding herself short of money to let him know because she’d get £10,000 for it now.
Among the many things I enjoyed in this book was the account of the gradual genesis of the film Choral which I saw last year and loved almost better than anything Bennett has ever written. It’s about a choral society trying to stage a performance of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in a northern town in 1914 and it’s marvellous. Then, a bit longer ago, there was the play Allelujah! which I saw at the Bridge theatre. It’s set in a geriatric ward in a hospital and while maybe not his best stage play (that, for me, has to be History Boys) it’s richly entertaining. The writing and development of it falls into the period covered by these dairies. And underpinning all this is the friendship with director/kindred spirit, Nick Hytner, who appears frequently in Enough Said, usually on the phone.
Like me Bennett savours words and his expression is gloriously precise without ever being pedantic or clumsy. Sometimes he cheerfully finds an interesting word. These are both single sentence diary entries: Iatrogenic refers to illness caused by medication for a different condition. “A litotic temperament – seeing the positive in a negative way. ‘Not bad’ “
Bennett often thinks about earlier things in his long life – especially his much-loved parents and his time at Leeds Modern School. And sometimes his thoughts are apropos of nothing. I’ll give you his wacky 24 May 2021 entry in full because it made me laugh aloud:
“It occurs to me that the whole of English history would have been changed had there been in the bedroom of Catherine of Aragon and Prince Aurthur the equivalent of a raddler, the dauber who paints the ram so that it leaves a mark when it has served the sheep. Raddle Prince Aurthur and it would have settled whether the prince had successfully slept with Catherine. There would have been no marriage for Henry VIII, thus no divorce and no Reformation.”
Personally I am not enamoured, however, of Bennett’s lifelong schoolboy frankness about (obsession with?) bodily functions. And I think that about almost everything of his I’ve read. Do we really need to know, for example, that he urinates into an underbed jug in the night which Rupert dutifully empties each morning? Still, I expect worse has been edited out.
There is a slight issue, moreover, in that because these are diaries there is repetition. Every year, for instance, he comments on his parent’s birthdays and tells us on August 8th that this was the day he was conscripted in 1953. Thus it may not be a book to read cover to cover in two days but it works perfectly as a warmly entertaining dip-in, dip out treat, perhaps to spread over several weeks.
“A prerequisite for happiness is to be without entitlement, not to feel you are owed a place in the world” comments this successful, talented, hardworking nonagenarian whose father was butcher. Spot on. Mr Bennett.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: English Monsters by James Scudamore
