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Two Besides
A Pair of Talking Heads
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Two Besides
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This edition will appeal to fans of Alan Bennett and those interested in British drama and character studies. It suits readers who appreciate poignant, character-driven monologues imbued with subtle emotional depth and social observation.
Two brand new monologues in the Talking Heads series, published here for the first time.
Two brand new monologues in the Talking Heads series, on BBC1 and iPlayer in June 2020, and published here for the first time.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
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Description
The gorgeous, pocket-sized edition of the two brand-new Talking Heads.
'Given the opportunity to revisit the characters from Talking Heads, I've added a couple more, both of them ordinary women whom life takes by surprise. They just about end up on top and go on, but without quite knowing how. Still, they're in good company, and at least they've made it into print.'
Alan Bennett's twelve Talking Heads are acknowledged masterworks by one of our most highly acclaimed writers. Some thirty years after the original six, Bennett has written Two Besides, a pair of monologues. Each, in its way, is a devastating portrait of grief. In An Ordinary Woman, a mother suffers the inevitable consequences when she makes life intolerable for herself and her family by falling for her own flesh and blood; while The Shrine tells the story behind a makeshift roadside shrine, introducing us to Lorna, bearing witness in her high-vis jacket, the bereft partner of a dedicated biker with a surprising private life.
The two new Talking Heads were recorded for the BBC during the exceptional circumstances of coronavirus lockdown in the spring of 2020, directed by Nicholas Hytner and performed by Sarah Lancashire and Monica Dolan.
The book contains a substantial preface by Nicholas Hytner and an introduction to each, by Alan Bennett.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780571365852
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 15 October 2020
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Faber & Faber
Edition: Main
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 6.0mm
Width: 129.0mm
Height: 168.0mm
Weight: 173g
Pages: 96
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About the Author
Alan Bennett has been one of our leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His television series Talking Heads has become a modern-day classic, as have many of his works for the stage including Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van (together with the screenplay), A Question of Attribution, The Madness of George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George), and an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. At the National Theatre, London, The History Boys (also a screenplay) won numerous awards including Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, an Olivier for Best New Play and the South Bank Award. On Broadway,The History Boys won five New York Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics' Circle Awards, a New York Drama Critics' Award, a New York Drama League Award and six Tonys. The Habit of Art opened at the National in 2009; in 2012, People, as well as the two short plays Hymn and Cocktail Sticks, was also staged there.
His latest collection of prose, Keeping On Keeping On, was published in 2016. Of his two previous collections, Writing Home was a number one bestseller and Untold Stories won the PEN/Ackerley Prize for autobiography, 2006. Bennett's Six Poets, Hardy to Larkin, An Anthology, was published in 2014. His fiction includes The Uncommon Reader and Smut: Two Unseemly Stories.
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