The Lady In The Van [2015, PDF/EPUB, ENG]

by Alan Bennett

(13,028 ratings)
Book cover
Lady in the Van.
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Book details


  • Author : Alan Bennett
  • Publisher : Faber & Faber
  • Published : 01-01-2015
  • Language : English
  • ISBN-10 : 1781255407
  • ISBN-13 : 978-1781255407
  • Reader Reviews : 13,028 (3.8)
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About the Author


Alan Bennett


Alan Bennett is a renowned playwright and essayist, a succession of whose plays have been staged at the Royal National Theatre and whose screenplay for The Madness of King George was nominated for an Academy Award. He made his first stage appearance with Beyond the Fringe and his latest play was The Lady in the Van with Maggie Smith. Episodes from his award-winning Talking Heads series have been shown on PBS. His first novel, The Clothes They Stood Up In, was published in 2000. He lives in London.

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Reader Reviews

J
porge
the journal entries are a nice addition
Reviewed in the United States on 04-15-2016
It's not just a script but quite a few journal entries from the author to round it out. Had seen the movie so wanted to know more about the author and 15 years w the homeless person. The notes - which take up quite a bit of the book - were v. nice. As far as a purchase it's fine but might be less than that for someone who expects this light weight movie/book to be more. It is what it is..
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J
Frank Dudgeon
Alan Bennett and Maggie Smith: A Dream Team
Reviewed in the United States on 02-25-2012
I have been enthralled by the work of Alan Bennett, acclaimed author and playwright, ever since I saw him on Broadway as a cast member and one of the creators of Beyond the Fringe. That was way back in the 60's. I was only a teenager at the time, but even then you could tell here was a unique talent. Over the years he has given us so many memorable pieces of literature and drama. The Lady in the Van is a play based on a true story of a very unusual woman who lived in a van parked in the garden of Bennett's home. I heard him relate a couple of anecdotes about this unusual situation on Bob Edwards Weekend, a public radio program, just a few weeks ago.

Dame Maggie Smith is a treasure. You may have enjoyed her most recent triumph as Dowager Countess Violet Grantham in Downton Abbey which airs on PBS here in the States. As The Lady in the Van she sparkles as the hilarious, strictly sincere, and usually delusional Miss Shepherd. The role of Alan Bennett is played by two actors. Adrian Scarborough is 'Alan Bennett 1,' the Alan at the time of the the occupation of his garden. Alan Bennett himself portrays 'Alan Bennett 2,' the older Bennett as he writes the play. They seem to be halves of the same person, yet they discuss and argue between themselves. A marvelous device and very insightful.

As a fan of Alan Bennett and Maggie Smith I would have loved to have seen this play in performance, but listening to the BBC radio drama gives you a very good idea of how wonderful a night in the presence of these great talents must have been. I'm so pleased that I have this CD to enjoy again and again.

By the way, Alan Bennett writes about writing this play in his excellent book Untold Stories, also highly recommended..
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J
David Keymer
BRILLIANT AND AFFECTING THEATER
Reviewed in the United States on 04-14-2013
The Lady in the Van is about the playwright's divided life, for which all real experience is grist for the writerly mill. It's about living gay and closeted in suburbia (the suburbs of London) in an age when coming out could get you arrested. It's about coming to terms with your own Mum, about having boors for neighbors, who don't know when to leave you alone. It's about a disturbed woman's mania and grief, and becoming friends of a sort with her -at least, a concerned neighbor--though she was chronically ungrateful and encroaching, but when her health fails after she has driven him near mad with her impossible demands for years, he doesn't want her to change, he wants her to stay like she is, mad but indomitable to the end. Pick as many from the list above as you want and that's what The Lady in the Van is about.

It's based on actual events. In 1974, a woman who lived in her van pulled it up Alan Bennett's driveway. She was only supposed to stay for a few days, while she decided where to move next, but she ended up staying for fifteen years and was both a demanding tenant -can you be a tenant if you never pay rent?-- and clearly insane. She also stinks. Continence is arguably a problem with her and her van has no toilet. (Excuse me! -lav.) Bennett wrote about his struggles with the mad Miss Shepherd, first in memoir form and then as a play. Maggie Smith played her in the play's premier in London.

Lady is exceptionally rich in humor and wit but pathos is never far away as we follow Mr. Bennett's fifteen-year struggle with the peremptory and out-of-touch neighbor he has acquired seemingly by accident and clearly against his wishes.

The play is also about what how writers use experience. Bennett separates himself into two characters in the play: Bennett I, the Bennett-on-the-spot, who actually participates in the events that unfold, and Bennett II, the reflecting Bennett, the writer-after-the-fact. In the play, the two Bennetts engage in conversation with each other, second-guessing each other's motives, commenting on the people and activities they observe, and discussing how much and under what circumstances a playwright can bend facts to improve a story. It makes for brilliant dialogue and keeps the mind just as engaged in the play as one's humor glands (wherever they are located).

There are surprises in the play -a thuggish gentleman appears out of nowhere and starts banging on Miss Shepherd's van door seeking to pry some money from her. He claims her name isn't Miss Shepherd at all. Miss Shepherd grows angry when Bennett I plays piano music in his study. Why? What's the backstory for this poor lady?

It plays as brilliant theater. Do you want laughs? It will provoke plenty, all the way from tiny little titters to great big belly laughs. Want to empathize with the characters on stage? You will. The more you learn about Miss Shepherd, the more you will treasure her. Want to think? This play will make you do it, although it's not primarily a thought-play. Rather, it's a good old-fashioned comedy of character, but presented in a new and effective way..
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