An Evening of Talking Heads – Hope Street Theatre
When Alan Bennett wrote the play Enjoy, in which an elderly couple find themselves being packed up to become a living museum exhibit, there’s a chance he might have been seeing the future for many of his other characters.
Tonight, we have three monologues from Bennett’s first series of Talking Heads, first broadcast in 1988. The series, which has become a staple of English literature syllabus’, provides a variety of perspectives on themes such as isolation, guilt, and loneliness.
Pieces like these will always present a bit of a challenge to some audiences – those who remember the time-period will find warmth in evocative references to times gone by, but younger audience members may find the idea of regularly writing letters, waiting for a call on a landline, or the 1980s buying power...