Anders Hanson

During the election campaign it has been particularly enjoyable to get home and read for a bit before going to bed.

The book I have just finished “Four Stories” by Alan Bennett. I have enjoyed everything that Alan Bennett has written and these four stories were no exception. I had read The Clothes They Stood Up In before, but it was worth re-reading and the other three stories were also excellent.

There is something particularly northern about Alan Bennett’s style of writing. It fits with the humour shown by people such as Victoria Wood. But it is also the details that he picks up on and the human traits that he writes about whilst keeping a lot of humour. Although I think my first contact with Alan Bennett’s writing was seeing some of his monologues performed at the Lyceum Theatre in Sheffield, I saw a lot more of it when I was loaned some videos of his plays by my English teacher Mrs Everitt.  She was also a big fan, and it was these videos that led me to enjoy plays such as A Question of Attribution and An Englishman Abroad.  There is still a lot of his work though that I have never watched or read.  The piece though that particularly sticks in my mind is something he did for television called Dinner at Noon, where he basically gave a commentary on people he saw whilst staying at the Crown Hotel in Harrogate.

I am now starting on another Peter Robinson book, “A Dedicated Man”, whilst still dipping in and out of John Major’s autobiography. Although John Major’s book is interesting, it became too lengthy and detailed for me to use as a relaxing read late at night.  But I am still reading parts of it regularly and it is still proving interesting.

AMAZON UK: Four Stories by Alan Bennett

WIKIPEDIA: Alan Bennett