HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR BENNETT

Yes, that National Treasure, Alan Bennett is 75 today.

It's rather hard to imagine him having a 'bit of a time' on this significant date, since he always appears - though it's doubtless only a cultivated image - somewhat lugubrious in his outlook on life in general and his own in particular.

Personally, I confess to being a Jekyll-and-Hyde Bennett fan: I like and am annoyed (or maybe just irritated) by his work on about a 50/50 basis, but the 50% that I like, I like enormously - possibly as much as 75%!

He has contributed generously to both the worlds of Art and Entertainment - I say both because Bennett is equally capable of writing stories and plays that are blissfully moving and transcendent as he is of tossing off sixth-form squibs and over-the-garden-gate music-hall comedy. Whatever form it takes we are, as a result, all the richer for his presence among us.

So, here's wishing him many more years of touching our emotions and tickling our funny bones and here are one or two priceless Bennett quotes from the man or his characters...

Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.

Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.

If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.

I've never seen the point of the sea, except where it meets the land. the shore has a point. The sea has none.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to read and often thinks they have.

Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.

I have never understood disliking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment.

The majority of people perform well in a crisis and when the spotlight is on them; it's on the Sunday afternoons of this life, when there is nobody looking, that the spirit falters.

I'm all in favour of free expression as long as it's kept rigidly under control.

Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.


See! That one even made Mr Bennett laugh!

'EAR, 'EAR!

It is truly amazing what you can overhear if, as I am, you are a dedicated eavesdropper...

Now, I know all about eavesdroppers never hearing any good about themselves but that's just a ruse (dreamt up by sniffy moralists) to discourage us from tuning-in for a bit of light entertainment to conversations that quite often sound like early drafts for a play by Alan Bennett.

This shouldn't be too surprising, since Mr B has admitted to doing a bit of eavesdropping himself... How else could he have come up with lines like, "I think at our time of life it's probably a bit late for branching out into yoghurt"?

Anyway, there we were in our local restaurant, enjoying marinated chicken breast with new potatoes and fine beans, when a woman at the next table suddenly announced:

"So, I said to her, 'Please remember that I know you didn't discover vaginal ecstasy until the mid-sixties!'"

All I need now is the rest of the play!

SIZE IS EVERYTHING

Browsing in the bookshop of London’s Royal National Theatre last week, I noticed a new display of the Works of Alan Bennett including CD's of Mr B himself reading extracts from his Diaries, plays written for Thora Hird and his version of The Wind in the Willows. There were also SIGNED COPIES of the book-of-the-film- of-the-play, The History Boys and the paperback edition of Untold Stories each inscribed in Bennett's neat but miniscule hand.

A memory instantly returned from eighteen months ago (apologies to those who read it the first time!) when the door-stop sized hardback edition of Untold Stories had just been published and was - as now - being sold with the author's signature.

An elderly theatre patron hovered by the table, clearly debating whether or not the necessary outlay of £20 for a SIGNED COPY was justified.

His wife joined him. “Well,” she asked, “are you going to buy it?”

“I don’t really know,” he replied hesitantly, opening one of the books at the title-page and closely scrutinising the autograph.

Then, replacing the book on the stack he said, in a line worthy of Mr Bennett himself:

“No... I don’t think so… it’s a very SMALL signature…”

BLOODY GOOD VALUE

This is a follow-up to yesterday's blog about Alan Bennett's miniscule signature that, for some people, seems to have nothing to do with the notion that 'small is beautiful' and everything to do with 'size matters'!

If the latter really is true when it comes to autographs, then cartoonist, satirist and 'enfant terrible', Gerald Scarfe, certainly gives value for money.


Scarfe's signature in a copy of Drawing Blood, his recent collection (2005) of deliciously devastating artworks (from Private Eye to The New Yorker and from Pink Floyd's The Wall to Walt Disney's Hercules), is MORE LIKE IT!

Purchased in Hatchards of Piccadilly, this signed copy has been inscribed by Scarfe with his best barbed pen and is big, bold and (brilliant touch) blood red!


True, the book is £15 more expensive than Untold Stories, but then his signature is at least 15% larger that Bennett's - probably more!

Maybe our Alan should take a few lessons in calligraphy from Gerald Scarfe before his next signing session!

GETTING YOUR MONEY'S WORTH

I recently noticed that Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories is now selling in ‘all good bookshops’ at HALF-PRICE!

How on earth do writers ever earn a living......? Oh, sorry! I forgot, most of us DON'T!

Anyway, seeing Bennett's latest tome consigned to the Bargain Basement - after a mere eight months on the regular shelves - brought to mind an exchange witnessed in the bookshop of London’s Royal National Theatre last year, shortly after the book’s publication.

A tottering ziggurat of Mr Bennett’s chunky volume had been erected surmounted by an enticing notice reading, SIGNED COPIES.

An elderly theatre patron hovered by the table, clearly debating whether or not the necessary outlay of £20 for a SIGNED COPY was justified.

His wife joined him. “Well,” she asked, “are you going to buy it?”

“I don’t really know,” he replied hesitantly, opening one of the books at the title-page and closely scrutinising the autograph. Then, replacing the book on the stack he said, in a line that was almost worthy of an Alan Bennett character, “No... I don’t think so… it’s a very SMALL signature…”