Sunday, December 22

Tag: Lady of Letters

An Evening of Talking Heads – Hope Street Theatre
North West

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...
Imelda Staunton and Maxine Peake perform Talking Heads in Leeds and Sheffield
NEWS

Imelda Staunton and Maxine Peake perform Talking Heads in Leeds and Sheffield

In a massive coup for Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Theatres two of the nation’s best actors Imelda Staunton and Maxine Peake will be performing two of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues in his native Yorkshire. The transfers of Staunton in A Lady of Letters and Peake in Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet from the Bridge Theatre are a show of solidarity with the two Yorkshire venues by the performers and the creative teams of these two pieces. For these performances, as at the Bridge, Alan Bennett has generously waived his royalty. During April and May while the Bridge Theatre was closed the London Theatre Company worked with the BBC to produce two of the iconic monologues, which were then broadcast on BBC One in June. Leeds Playhouse has already announced Connecting Voices, a colla...