House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries

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Later, arriving at the vaccination centre for his first jab, Bennett firmly announces that he is here “for the virus” (in his defence, he points out that both of them are “v words”). Boris Johnson’s nightly addresses during the Pandemic are “ pretty pointless… a poor orator and speaker generally… the plainness of Keir Starmer a relief. The book is a lovely small hardback with a great cover and pretty inside cover pages, but I just felt I wanted it to be longer. TheNotebook by Roland Allen is a gorgeously illustrated cultural history of the humble notebook, from the bustling markets of medieval Florence to the quiet studies of our greatest thinkers.

Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and broadcasting, and many appearances as an actor.

The pandemic is the background and, indeed, the foreground to this latest and most slender tranche of journals, which runs to a mere 64 pages. As said I had already read this somewhere else, thought the book would be extra entries to his diaries of lockdown, but unfortunately not. Although I love Alan Bennett’s diaries I’m not entirely sure that this was deserving of a publication on its own. In November 2020 he notices that the Queen, nearly 10 years his senior, is able to walk backwards when laying a wreath at the Cenotaph.

A fair few random memories thrown in from Alan's childhood with no context to the current era in which he is writing. An abiding memory for me is his engaging encounter with a leaf sweeper which puts a smile on AB’s face for the rest of the day. Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a slight Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. He may clearly be increasingly frail but, even in lockdown, Alan Bennett retains his customary waspish wit in the latest tranche of his diaries ― Choice --This text refers to the hardcover edition. On the phone to the optician about his broken glasses, he finds that he has lost the words, and his partner has to take over.So, my 4* rating reflects how good these 45 pages of musings were but don't reflect my disappointment! The biggest takeaway I got from this is that Alan Bennett is also sometimes confused or perplexed by contemporary poetry and grandiose articles in the TLS. Where this tortured restraint does not reach, though, is into Bennett’s ethical worldview which remain as richly communitarian as ever.

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. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Less than 50 pages of nothing, there are a handful of snippets which appear to be going somewhere but immediately are snuffed out.Bennett’s diaries, which he has been publishing since the early 1980s, are full of these “absurd and inexplicable” moments. On Broadway, The History Boys won five New York Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics' Circle Awards, a New York Drama Critics' Award for Best Play, a New York Drama League Award and six Tonys including Best Play. However, the book really was too short to obtain a good idea of the author's thoughts during the lockdown periods.