Alan Bennett's Talking Heads monologues

i remember seeing Bed Among the Lentils, not sure abt any others

Bennett never really took hold as a cultural figure in the USA post-Beyond the Fringe, except to a degree w/ the Broadway crowd w/ Madness of George III and The History Boys.

I think Bed Among The Lentils was shown on U.S. public TV, but none of the others were. It was great (and hyped the week it aired), but that was it.

Most of these are really good but Waiting For The Telegram is the most moving thing I think I've ever seen on television. It's is devastating.

A Lady Of Letters is half-heartbreaking and half-euphoric in a completely bizarre and brilliant fashion. Routledge might be the best actress in British TV history IMO. Playing Sandwiches is an amazing and pretty horrifying bit of work, a proper kick in the nuts first time i saw it.
David Haig has been wasted in most things ever since.

I've owned the audio versions of all of these since I was a teenager, but only recently seen the television versions and hadn't previously realised that Playing Sandwiches is performed by the guy from The Wright Way/the terrible Yes Minister remake etc. (also hadn't realised that Maggie Smith performs Bed Among the Lentils on TV, the radio version read by Anna Massey.)

I could swear Chip in the Sugar was also on PBS but don't recall seeing it.

A Cream Cracker under the Settee is the only one I can remember of these, and is also devastating. So that one.

Don't see how Thora Hird is not going to win this.

Bennett never really took hold as a cultural figure in the USA post-Beyond the Fringe, except to a degree w/ the Broadway crowd w/ Madness of George III and The History Boys.

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I'd be thankful.

Lady in the Van was the most unneccesary looking film released last year.

From Alan Bennett's 2015 diary, in the current LRB:

3 August. To Gosford Street to record Sue MacGregor’s programme Reunion about the two series of Talking Heads. The best anecdote to come out of the first series was told me by Tony Cash, who heard A Lady of Letters translated on French radio. In the original version Miss Ruddock, talking about her dubious neighbours on whom she spies, remarks: ‘Couple opposite having their tea. No cloth on. Milk bottle stood there waiting.’ This had been translated: ‘Couple opposite having their tea. No clothes on. Milk bottle stood there waiting.’

said programme is here (possibly only for UK types i'm not sure) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b069gvl5

I love A Chip In The Sugar. "I said we like tea. Only mother says no .. I'll have coffee, I feel like an adventure!" "And flares are anathema, even in Bradford"

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I've been watching a few of the BBC remakes. I suppose the originals were written with their particular actors in mind, as the new ones feel a bit like watching a tribute band perform proficient cover versions, although I thought Martin Freeman did well not to do an Alan Bennett impression.
Some of them have a warning at the beginning that they're set in the 80s and reflect the attitudes and language of the time or something, which seems unnecessary bcs apart from the odd anachronisms like Walkmans or evening papers, they seem surprisingly undated to me.

although I thought Martin Freeman did well not to do an Alan Bennett impression.

as someone who has not very much good to say about MF, I agree that he did moderately to very well here. The director/costume and production designer (collectively) did not do well though. MF is dressed in a perfectly current (or at least noughties-current) zip-up funnel neck with shirt under and chinos - but there are references in the text to "grey socks with sandals" and plastic-macs. His appearance, stylishly cropped haircut and all, simply does not fit with the text or with the room in which he is placed. So they've modernised some aspects of it but those aspects do not fit with the "mucky books" "chess without any clothes on! Chess Men!" thing which is key to the text nor does his recent-ish costume chime with either his repressed sexuality or with the room he is in. It makes it seem like now (or at least within the last decade) and that does not make sense.

I'm actually sometimes a theatre set and costume designer, so may be overthingking this. If I am, I am stil right though.

The MF one is the only one I have watched, so far. I sort of saw, without actually watching, one tonight and noted that it was filmed in the Slater's house in EastEnders. The wallpaper border gave it away.

I'm glad that they have not remade the Thora Hird monologues, "A Cream Cracker Under the Settee" and "Waiting For The Telegram" and I guess that it is because they were so completely and specifically written for Thora that AB that there's no way they could be improved. I agree. There isn't. I can't even think about "Waiting for the Telegram" without tears in my eyes and, rest assured, there are now.

*AB thought that*

correction.

or because over 70's aren't supposed to travel to EastEnders studios to film scenes

I heard that bcs of social distancing the actors had to do their own hair and make-up, and bring their own costumes, so it was MF's mistake. He's too much of a mod to wear flares.