Alan Bennett

The Lady In The Van

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For fifteen years, the recalcitrant Miss Shepherd lived in her broken-down van on Alan Bennett's driveway in Camden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord, never under the illusion that his impulse was purely charitable.

This account of those years was first published in 1989 in the London Review of Books. The play premiered in 1999, directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Dame Maggie Smith, who reprise those roles in this new film adaptation. Shot on location at Bennett's house, Alex Jennings plays the author, alongside household names including James Corden, Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent and Dominic Cooper.

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Quotes

  • Дмитрий Кувшиновhas quoted6 years ago
    January 1982. ‘Do you see he’s been found, that American soldier?’ This is Colonel Dozo, kidnapped by the Red Brigade and found after a shoot-out in a flat in Padua. ‘Yes, he’s been found,’ she says triumphantly, ‘and I know who found him.’ Thinking it unlikely she has an acquaintance in the Italian version of the SAS, I ask whom she means. ‘St Anthony of course. The patron saint of lost things. St Anthony of Padua.’ ‘Well,’ I want to say, ‘he didn’t have far to look.’
  • Дмитрий Кувшиновhas quoted6 years ago
    her idiosyncratic view
  • Дмитрий Кувшиновhas quoted6 years ago
    She was passionately anti-Communist, and as long ago as 1945 had written a letter to Jesus ‘concerning the dreadful situation feared from the Yalta agreement’.
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