:00:00. > :00:12.This programme contains strong language.
:00:13. > :00:25.This programme contains strong language.
:00:26. > :00:32.He often says he started his career old back in the '60s. For nows as
:00:33. > :00:36.though he has never aged. What seems nostalgic in his world is often the
:00:37. > :00:43.opposite. I don't think I would like to be on your programme.
:00:44. > :00:50.But his sense of the absurd is all the more powerful for its familiar
:00:51. > :00:53.setting and his empathy for life's promise unfulfilled. I don't know
:00:54. > :00:58.what it is, but I'm not getting everything out of life that I should
:00:59. > :01:02.be getting, sort of feeling! But Alan Bennett knows his audience and
:01:03. > :01:10.increasingly delights in shocking them. What you've been sucking is
:01:11. > :01:16.some snot. Tonight he's talking to me, Nicholas Hytner on the occasion
:01:17. > :01:20.of his birthday. We've worked together for more than 20 years. We
:01:21. > :01:25.made movies together and staged his plays at the National Theatre. It's
:01:26. > :01:32.a moment to look back at his astonishing career, his plays, films
:01:33. > :01:40.and work for television. And his autobiographical writing,
:01:41. > :01:45.his diaries and memoirs. It's a good time to look ahead too, so he's
:01:46. > :01:49.agreed to a rare cross-examination, nothing something he usually enjoys.
:01:50. > :01:53.And is according to his own admission, an awful person to
:01:54. > :02:05.interview. This is Alan Bennett at 80!
:02:06. > :02:13.Alan, I remember ten years ago, exactly, we were in rehearsal for
:02:14. > :02:18.the History Boys. You were 70, there was a kick and you were extremely
:02:19. > :02:22.grumpy to be acknowledged at all. So we're going to pass in silence over
:02:23. > :02:50.the 80th birthday and I think that might be the kindest thing to do.
:02:51. > :02:53.Test. I'm gonna try and start back in 1968 just briefly, your first
:02:54. > :02:57.play, 40 Years On, how do you think you've changed as a playwright in
:02:58. > :03:07.the nearly 50 years you've been writing? I think I'm a bit more
:03:08. > :03:12.considerate of the audience than I used to be. In 40 Years On it didn't
:03:13. > :03:15.matter much, but I think I used to write long monologues and immensely
:03:16. > :03:20.long speeches and expect the audience to take them, whereas now I
:03:21. > :03:24.hope I get on with it a bit more and also, you tend to give me a push in
:03:25. > :03:27.that direction. So I'm kinder to them and also to the actors. I
:03:28. > :03:30.remember of course it was partly because it was an unhappy
:03:31. > :03:34.experience, but I remember in my second play getting on with Kenneth
:03:35. > :03:38.Moore, he balked at the length of the speeches and I was outraged at
:03:39. > :03:41.the time, but now I would fully understand it. Yeah, well now you're
:03:42. > :03:44.up for suggestions from anybody really. One of the things that's
:03:45. > :03:47.always amazed me is I remember when we were doing Wind in the Willows,
:03:48. > :03:51.Tim McMullan and Adrian Scarborough, who played the two weasels, were
:03:52. > :03:54.constantly coming up with stuff which ended up in the play. Well,
:03:55. > :03:58.but that's jumping ahead, but in fact Wind in the Willows was when I
:03:59. > :04:03.really first learnt to write, as it were, on the hop. I mean, I had to
:04:04. > :04:06.write as we went along and I'd never been able to do that before. So
:04:07. > :04:10.look, just in two minutes we've covered 40 Years On, a public
:04:11. > :04:13.school, a getting on Labour MP and his home life, the river bank,
:04:14. > :04:16.there's a misperception fostered by a particularly pompous, critical
:04:17. > :04:19.brotherhood that you're at your best in Halifax. In fact, the material
:04:20. > :04:22.ranges far and wide and I thought we'd start with a clip from the
:04:23. > :04:26.Madness of King George, which started live at the National Theatre
:04:27. > :04:30.as the madness of George III. King George in the first grip of his
:04:31. > :04:34.madness has seized two of his small children from their beds and is now
:04:35. > :04:47.pursued by the Queen and the rest of the court as he runs rampant through
:04:48. > :04:53.Windsor Castle. You should stay. I have to talk it in order to keep up
:04:54. > :05:02.with my foot. I'm scared. I thought he had taken you. What? The other
:05:03. > :05:11.George, the fat one, you were not in my bed. I thought you had deceived
:05:12. > :05:23.me with the son. I'll tell Elizabeth. No! Elizabeth, you leave
:05:24. > :05:32.us, all of you go, just go. Go, you two, go. Do you want to talk? Talk,
:05:33. > :05:36.talk away. What do you do with him that you do not do with me, madam?
:05:37. > :05:39.Acting like pigs, the pair of you, huh? Those fat hands, that young
:05:40. > :05:45.belly, those warm thighs. Do you think that you are mad? I don't
:05:46. > :05:52.know. I don't know. Madness is such torment. Madness isn't half blind.
:05:53. > :06:00.Madmen can stand. They skip, they dance. I talk. Talk and talk and
:06:01. > :06:05.talk. I hear the words, I have to speak them, I have to empty my head
:06:06. > :06:31.of the words. Something has happened. Something is not right. Oh
:06:32. > :06:36.Charlotte. Oh. Oh. So that's Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren. It was
:06:37. > :06:39.an amazing script, an amazing play, an amazing screenplay. Is there
:06:40. > :06:45.something particularly about the royal predicament that fascinates
:06:46. > :06:48.you? Not really, I mean I've written about the Queen three times, I
:06:49. > :06:56.suppose, but that's because she's? she's such a wonderful character. I
:06:57. > :06:59.mean, she also carries her own plot with her, as in a way George III
:07:00. > :07:03.does, but the audience knows what she's like, so you don't have to do
:07:04. > :07:10.a great deal, you just have to slightly tweak it. You know, you'll
:07:11. > :07:14.save pages and pages of exposition, they know where they are, they know
:07:15. > :07:19.who she is and it also helps me, because one thing I'm not good at is
:07:20. > :07:28.plot and to be given a plot is wonderful. I mean, with George III
:07:29. > :07:31.it appealed partly because it was dramatic and it was also sad and
:07:32. > :07:40.funny, but I also knew, you know, what was going to happen. Yeah,
:07:41. > :07:43.let's have a look at the King Lear scene from George III, the scene
:07:44. > :07:52.where everybody realises he's getting better. How does the King?
:07:53. > :08:00.How does the king? Lord Thurlow, sir. Your majesty. Yes, we're
:08:01. > :08:07.reading a spot of Shakespeare. Willis, give him the book. Oh, King
:08:08. > :08:11.Lear. Is that wise? I had no idea what it was about, sir. I'm asleep,
:08:12. > :08:14.apparently and Cordelia comes in and asks the doctor that scribbled here
:08:15. > :08:19.how I am, off I go. Who's Cordelia? You are. Yes, but Willis can't do
:08:20. > :08:30.it. He's a fine doctor, but a hopeless actor. Off you go. How
:08:31. > :08:36.fares my royal lord? How does your majesty? You do me wrong to take me
:08:37. > :08:40.out of the grave. Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound upon a wheel
:08:41. > :08:47.of fire, that mine own tears to scald like molten lead. That's so
:08:48. > :08:56.true. Pray do not mock me, I am a very foolish, fond old man. To deal
:08:57. > :09:13.plainly I fear I am not in my perfect mind. Is that the end, your
:09:14. > :09:20.majesty? Oh good lord, no. Cordelia dies, hanged and the shock of it
:09:21. > :09:27.kills the king. So they all die. It's a tragedy. It's very affecting.
:09:28. > :09:33.Well, it's the way I play it. Your majesty seems more yourself. Do I?
:09:34. > :09:39.Yes, I do. Yeah, I've always been myself, even when I was ill. Only
:09:40. > :09:49.now I seem myself. And that's the important thing. I have remembered
:09:50. > :09:56.how to seem. What, what? What did your majesty say? What? I didn't say
:09:57. > :09:59.anything. Besides Greville, you're not supposed to ask the King
:10:00. > :10:06.questions, you should know that. What, what? Get him ready. That was
:10:07. > :10:10.Nigel Hawthorne, John Wood, Ian Holmes and Rupert Graves in the
:10:11. > :10:15.Madness of King George and that reminds me of how addicted you are
:10:16. > :10:19.to historical truth. The scene itself is an invention, but King
:10:20. > :10:22.Lear was a favourite play of George III's, he did identify with King
:10:23. > :10:26.Lear, he loved Shakespeare and they knew he was getting better when the
:10:27. > :10:29.verbal ticks, particularly the what, what's reappeared, so it's quite
:10:30. > :10:37.hard a lot of the time to detach you from historical truth, even in the
:10:38. > :10:40.interests of drama. No, that's right, because the scene after that
:10:41. > :10:44.then they take him to parliament and show him to parliament, which of
:10:45. > :10:47.course never happened and I remember when you first suggested that to me
:10:48. > :10:52.I was thinking oh, you can't possibly do that, but then I thought
:10:53. > :10:55.well why not? Yeah, so from Nigel Hawthorne right back to John
:10:56. > :10:58.Gielgud, you have often organised your plays around whopping great
:10:59. > :11:00.parts for wonderful leading actors, Gielgud, Guinness, Maggie Smith,
:11:01. > :11:03.Richard Griffiths, Nigel Hawthorne, Francis de la Tour, something which
:11:04. > :11:17.I often wish the younger generations of playwrights would realise is a
:11:18. > :11:20.good idea. It's always a good idea to give great leading actors some
:11:21. > :11:24.red meat to chew on. Gielgud, you lucked out really to get Gielgud for
:11:25. > :11:30.your very first play, 40 Years On, maybe we'll just have a look at I
:11:31. > :11:36.think the only clip that remains. This is the only bit that's left,
:11:37. > :11:40.yes. That's right. From 40 Years On, Gielgud is the headmaster. This
:11:41. > :11:44.school is Albion House, this huddle of buildings nestling in the fold of
:11:45. > :11:47.the downs, once the home of a long line of English country gentlemen,
:11:48. > :11:50.symbol of all that is most enduring in our hopes and traditions, 30
:11:51. > :11:53.years ago to date, Tupper, the Germans marched into Poland and
:11:54. > :12:05.you're picking your nose. See me afterwards. SPEAKER: TUPPER Yes,
:12:06. > :12:10.sir. We are not a rich school, we're not a powerful school, not anymore.
:12:11. > :12:13.And we don't set much store by cleverness here at Albion House, so
:12:14. > :12:17.we don't run away with all the prizes. We used to do, of course, in
:12:18. > :12:21.the old days and we must never forget those old days, but what we
:12:22. > :12:24.must remember is that we have bequeathed our traditions to other
:12:25. > :12:28.schools and if now they lead where we follow then it is because of
:12:29. > :12:31.that. My successor is well known to you all in the person of Mr
:12:32. > :12:34.Franklin. When the governors want your approval of their appointments,
:12:35. > :12:37.Wigglesworth, actually we'll ask for it. Mr Franklin has long been my
:12:38. > :12:41.senior housemaster and now he is promoted to pride of place. No doubt
:12:42. > :12:44.with the future we'll see many changes, well, perhaps that is what
:12:45. > :12:49.the future is for. We cannot stand still, even at the best of times. We
:12:50. > :12:54.cannot stand still, even at the best of times. Your double edged,
:12:55. > :12:58.ambiguous nostalgia runs through so many of your plays. You seem to be
:12:59. > :13:02.regretting a past which perhaps never even existed, at the same time
:13:03. > :13:09.as wanting to knock it all away and look to the future. Well, I think 40
:13:10. > :13:13.Years On, I think with your first play you tend to lay out a programme
:13:14. > :13:17.without probably knowing it, but we lay out a programme of the kind of
:13:18. > :13:20.thing that you're going to be writing really and certainly it does
:13:21. > :13:26.keep surfacing in stuff that I wrote subsequently. But watching Gielgud,
:13:27. > :13:29.I'd forgotten how easily he just went from comedy to sadness and
:13:30. > :13:32.nostalgia and how effortless it seemed for him, though it wasn't,
:13:33. > :13:36.because when they first suggested that he play the part I couldn't
:13:37. > :13:53.believe that he would possibly want to do it.
:13:54. > :13:57.But then he did and to begin with it was disastrous, I mean he wouldn't
:13:58. > :14:00.speak to the audience and the whole form of the play depends on the
:14:01. > :14:09.headmaster treating the audience as an audience watching a school play.
:14:10. > :14:12.But he wouldn't, he thought it was vulgar to talk to the audience, but
:14:13. > :14:15.eventually Patrick Garland, who was directing, persuaded him to talk to
:14:16. > :14:26.the audience and thereafter he would scarcely talk to anybody else.
:14:27. > :14:29.But he also showed that quality of just being able to turn on a
:14:30. > :14:33.sixpence and suddenly, Maggie Smith can do it as well, of being very
:14:34. > :14:36.funny one minute and sad the next and you'd see every night the
:14:37. > :14:50.famous, I think they're called the Terry tears from his mother I think,
:14:51. > :14:54.that he could cry instantly. He'd be chatting away in the wings
:14:55. > :14:58.and telling some endless story, which he was always doing, and then
:14:59. > :15:04.he'd have to step on the stage and within a few seconds he was weeping
:15:05. > :15:08.and the audience were weeping. And it was wonderful to see and to
:15:09. > :15:13.see I suppose at the start of my career, I've always remembered it.
:15:14. > :15:20.It's a tragedy that the whole thing wasn't recorded, it would be
:15:21. > :15:23.nowadays, but it was wiped. And I think I remember you once telling me
:15:24. > :15:28.that Noel Coward came and ticked him off one night, because he wasn't
:15:29. > :15:31.trying hard enough, is that right? Yes, now that's one thing, he came
:15:32. > :15:35.on the night, before the first night he came and we'd had a really rocky
:15:36. > :15:40.ride in rehearsals and in previews and on the tour, because John G was
:15:41. > :15:43.very, very slow to get his words and he'd been through a bad period in
:15:44. > :15:48.his career and he had no confidence at all and we went to Manchester who
:15:49. > :15:52.opened it on tour in Manchester in an empty theatre virtually and he
:15:53. > :16:04.went on stage and he was so far from remembering his words.
:16:05. > :16:10.He sometimes didn't remember the names of the other characters in the
:16:11. > :16:13.play. Can I say, my parents saw it in Manchester and I remember vividly
:16:14. > :16:16.they came back absolutely scandalised, worst play they'd ever
:16:17. > :16:22.seen, John Gielgud a disgrace, so I'm here to corroborate that.
:16:23. > :16:26.Well, I was embarrassed, but at the same time I knew so little about the
:16:27. > :16:30.theatre, I thought well maybe this is what happens, you know, I wasn't
:16:31. > :16:33.sure that this was proper behaviour, but he wasn't in the least bit
:16:34. > :16:41.embarrassed that the audience saw him forgetting his words. They were
:16:42. > :16:47.in Manchester, you know, it didn't matter. And then the play then went
:16:48. > :16:51.to Brighton, where he knew a lot of people and where friends of his
:16:52. > :16:56.began to filter in and this made him pull his socks up a bit and then he
:16:57. > :17:00.began to remember his words, so that by the time he got to London two
:17:01. > :17:04.weeks later he was just about, you know, on top of it and then Noel
:17:05. > :17:07.Coward came to see him the night before it opened and wagged his
:17:08. > :17:12.famous finger at him and told him that it was a very good play and he
:17:13. > :17:21.was very good in it and gave him a real boost and it was fine then. But
:17:22. > :17:30.it was a close run thing and I was very, very lucky that he did it, but
:17:31. > :17:34.I was very lucky altogether really. Albion House, the school in 40 Years
:17:35. > :17:39.On is self consciously a metaphor for England. I'm not sure if the
:17:40. > :17:43.school in The History Boys is a metaphor for anything, but what is
:17:44. > :17:46.it about school that makes it such a suitable setting for your plays?
:17:47. > :17:52.Oh I think it's a closed society really, I think that's what I like
:17:53. > :17:58.about it. A monastery would be the same, I think P. D. James sets
:17:59. > :18:02.things in monasteries, you know, and I think it heightens the atmosphere
:18:03. > :18:05.and you are shut off from the world and it's a stadium for eccentricity,
:18:06. > :18:19.so well, it's a theatre within a theatre, as it were.
:18:20. > :18:26.Yeah, and schoolmasters leading actors. Yes, and schoolmasters
:18:27. > :18:30.overact really. Yeah, we'll go to The History Boys now, a scene where
:18:31. > :18:32.Hector the schoolmaster, he's not overacting, a scene where Hector
:18:33. > :18:35.perhaps unconsciously reveals himself talking about the Hardy
:18:36. > :18:48.poem, Drummer Hodge, to the unhappiest of the pupils, Posner.
:18:49. > :18:53.Uncoffined is a typical Hardy usage, it's a compound adjective formed by
:18:54. > :19:12.putting un in front of the noun or verb, of course. Unkissed,
:19:13. > :19:16.unrejoicing unconfessed, unembraced. It's a turn of phrase that brings
:19:17. > :19:20.with it a sense of not sharing, of being out of it, whether because of
:19:21. > :19:40.diffidence or shyness, but a holding back, not being in the swim. Can you
:19:41. > :19:59.see that? Yes, sir. I felt that a bit.
:20:00. > :20:02.The best moments in reading are when you come across something, a though,
:20:03. > :20:10.a feeling, a way of looking at things that you'd thought special,
:20:11. > :20:14.particular to you.. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person
:20:15. > :20:20.you've never met. Maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has
:20:21. > :20:39.come out and taken yours. It's wonderful watching Richard
:20:40. > :20:43.though, you know, and also I don't think I noticed it when they were
:20:44. > :20:47.doing it, but Sam Barnett, he just makes a tiny movement of his hand
:20:48. > :20:51.and you think maybe that he's going to take his hand or one of them is
:20:52. > :20:54.going to take the other's, whether Hector's going to take Posner's hand
:20:55. > :21:08.and that's in a way I think the centre of the play. It is the heart
:21:09. > :21:11.of the play and both of them are absolutely wonderful. Sam really
:21:12. > :21:15.nails something there, which I think is very much a theme of your work,
:21:16. > :21:19.which is the way loneliness constricts so many of us, the way so
:21:20. > :21:21.many people find it difficult to break down the barriers that
:21:22. > :21:29.separate them from the rest of humanity. You always, it seems to
:21:30. > :21:32.me, manage to kind of create a conspiracy of the lonely, you feel a
:21:33. > :21:37.thousand people a night acknowledging their own loneliness
:21:38. > :21:40.watching your plays. These two characters here are profoundly
:21:41. > :21:43.isolated, even Hector, who spends the entire play performing to a
:21:44. > :21:55.classroom full of boys, he has real problems with proper human contact.
:21:56. > :22:02.Expressing that through the discussion of a poem always seemed
:22:03. > :22:06.incredibly moving to me. But in that scene you do suggest that one of the
:22:07. > :22:13.consolations of a kind of inherent loneliness is literature. You find
:22:14. > :22:19.fellowship in literature. What kind of literature do you find particular
:22:20. > :22:25.fellowship in? Ooh. I'm very ill read, I don't know
:22:26. > :22:29.if that sounds modest, but it's quite true. But it's too late, you
:22:30. > :22:34.know, one of the advantages of being 80 is I now know that I can't do
:22:35. > :22:39.anything about this and so here we are. I like American literature more
:22:40. > :22:45.than I do contemporary English literature. I don't feel any of the
:22:46. > :22:54.people writing in England can tell me very much. That may be unfair. I
:22:55. > :22:58.like Philip Roth, for instance. I don't know, in a way writing seems
:22:59. > :23:01.to me spoils you for reading, that if I'm trying to write something
:23:02. > :23:15.I'll tend to read only, you know, superficial stuff. I don't read
:23:16. > :23:24.anything which would make me think oh, I can't do as well as this,
:23:25. > :23:27.which I'm very much prey to. Well I've always thought that one of the
:23:28. > :23:31.defining features of your work is that you invite empathy for people
:23:32. > :23:34.who if the kind of audience that comes to the theatre were to
:23:35. > :23:45.encounter in real life they would run a mile. Absolutely. And I would
:23:46. > :23:49.run a mile as well, yeah. So is writing in some way a means of
:23:50. > :23:52.encountering stuff that you would not encounter or you would avoid
:23:53. > :23:56.encountering in life? Yes, it is and it's also a way of
:23:57. > :24:04.doing things that people wouldn't expect you to do either in writing
:24:05. > :24:08.or in life. I mean, I think if things for the characters to say or
:24:09. > :24:13.to do and I think well, people won't want to hear that from me and then I
:24:14. > :24:16.think well why not? And particularly as I've got older that's much more
:24:17. > :24:30.the case, that I quite consciously outflank the audience or try and
:24:31. > :24:33.outflank my audience as I see them. I mean, when in The History Boys,
:24:34. > :24:37.Dakin, the good looking boy who wants to impress the master, Irwin,
:24:38. > :24:43.and suddenly says, "are there any circumstances in which you might
:24:44. > :24:47.suck me off?" I remember thinking of that and it making me laugh, but
:24:48. > :24:50.thinking oh, I couldn't do that and I could think well, Mark Ravenhill
:24:51. > :24:54.could say that, I can't say that and I thought well why can't I say that?
:24:55. > :25:10.And I do consciously slightly shock my audience, but it also slightly
:25:11. > :25:13.shocks me as well. What I was really wondering was were
:25:14. > :25:19.there any circumstances in which there was any chance of your sucking
:25:20. > :25:24.me off. It's the end of term, I've got into Oxford, I thought we might
:25:25. > :25:36.push the boat out. Anyway, I'll leave it on the table. I don't
:25:37. > :25:39.understand this. Reckless, impulsive, immoral, how come there's
:25:40. > :25:46.such a difference between the way you teach and the way you live? Why
:25:47. > :25:49.are you so bold in argument in talking, but when it comes to the
:25:50. > :25:55.point, when it's something that's actually happening, I mean now
:25:56. > :26:02.you're so locking careful. Is it because you're a teacher and I'm a
:26:03. > :26:06.boy? Obviously that. What you also do is you get an
:26:07. > :26:09.audience, despite itself, to root for Dakin and to root for his
:26:10. > :26:12.success in that particular project, which is an extraordinary thing for
:26:13. > :26:18.particularly a National Theatre audience to want to do.
:26:19. > :26:21.I remember there was one critic who found the idea of a boy trying to
:26:22. > :26:25.seduce a teacher completely incredible and we put it to the
:26:26. > :26:28.vote, I don't think you were there, in the rehearsal room, who here
:26:29. > :26:40.tried to seduce a teacher and one member of that cast not only tried,
:26:41. > :26:44.but succeeded. Yes, well when I was writing it my agent at that time, I
:26:45. > :26:47.was telling her about it and somebody had said that this is very
:26:48. > :26:51.unlikely, she said oh nonsense darling, I did the art master at
:26:52. > :26:57.school, she listed various people and so, you know, I was encouraged
:26:58. > :27:03.by that. But there's a real debate about education going on in The
:27:04. > :27:08.History Boys, isn't there? Oh yes, yes. And where do you stand on that?
:27:09. > :27:12.I believe very strongly, one of the few things I am passionate about is
:27:13. > :27:15.that private education is wrong and that we'll only get somewhere in
:27:16. > :27:22.England when private education is abolished and we are all of us
:27:23. > :27:25.educated under the same system. There are wonderful things in
:27:26. > :27:28.private schools and there are wonderful things in state schools.
:27:29. > :27:32.They should be brought together, it ought not to be difficult to do, it
:27:33. > :27:39.ought to be possible for instance at sixth form level and then lead on
:27:40. > :27:46.from there. But I can't see it ever happening, but I do believe that
:27:47. > :27:49.very strongly. You have written about how there was
:27:50. > :27:54.a definite change in the way you wrote when you were diagnosed with
:27:55. > :27:58.cancer. When you thought you were gonna die you said it acted like a
:27:59. > :28:02.laxative on you. Well I put a spurt on, I think it
:28:03. > :28:07.happened that when I was diagnosed in 1997 it was, you know, they said
:28:08. > :28:11.I had a 50, 50 chance of surviving, but the truth was I actually had a
:28:12. > :28:22.one in five chance, so I was very, very lucky. But it meant that by the
:28:23. > :28:26.time we got to The History Boys, which was 2004, the shadow was
:28:27. > :28:29.receding and so I think some of that renewed life and indeed vigour,
:28:30. > :28:46.which is not a word that I normally associate with myself, fed into The
:28:47. > :28:50.History Boys. The next clip we've got is from one
:28:51. > :28:53.of your TV films from the 70s, Sunset Across the Bay, an old
:28:54. > :29:06.Yorkshire married couple about to retire to Morecambe, to the seaside.
:29:07. > :29:10.Me mother was a great worker for the Conservatives. That was with having
:29:11. > :29:19.a shop. She was in the Primrose League. That seems to have gone now,
:29:20. > :29:23.all that. Empire Day. Empire Day is the 24th of May, Empire Day is the
:29:24. > :29:39.24th of May, Empire Day is the 24th of May and it all goes marching on.
:29:40. > :29:45.All this singing, it's three o' clock in the morning. I saw another
:29:46. > :29:51.feller come out of that end house. Oh aye? She's blonde now, saw her in
:29:52. > :29:58.the laundrette this morning. She smiled, but I didn't tick on. Well
:29:59. > :30:04.she's right enough. Her husband's in Stockport. It'd break heart, she had
:30:05. > :30:08.that place spotless. Anyway, how do you expect folks to behave? These
:30:09. > :30:12.days there's no incentive. We didn't behave like that. Only because we
:30:13. > :30:17.didn't have the opportunity. Well, we were happy. I'm not saying we
:30:18. > :30:25.weren't happy. We've lived round here all our lives. Courting in the
:30:26. > :30:34.cemetery. Hey, only that once. It was my teeth you fell for. And I've
:30:35. > :30:39.still got them. Oh heck. Fancy. What? I've slept in this bedroom 27
:30:40. > :30:49.years and I've never seen that before. What? That crack in the
:30:50. > :31:00.ceiling. Where? There. Oh I have. Well I haven't. Like a man smoking a
:31:01. > :31:07.pipe. The couple, the man particularly,
:31:08. > :31:11.are very like my parents. Harry Markham, he was an amateur actor all
:31:12. > :31:16.his life until he retired, he worked for and then he retired and he was
:31:17. > :31:22.in quite a lot, I think he was in loads of films, he was so genuine,
:31:23. > :31:26.he's wonderful to see. But he's also like Dad in Cocktail Sticks played
:31:27. > :31:32.by Jeff Rawle, which is at the other end of my career really, 30, 40
:31:33. > :31:35.years later. And watching Sunset Across The Bay there were several
:31:36. > :31:42.lines I noticed you used again in cocktail sticks. Your mam needing an
:31:43. > :31:48.all over wash every time she went to spend a penny. That's right, yeah.
:31:49. > :31:52.Well, because it was something my dad said usually, that's why.
:31:53. > :31:55.But you are pretty ruthless, or you have become more ruthless in the way
:31:56. > :32:00.you've used your parents, you've used the material of your own life
:32:01. > :32:04.to turn them into art. Well I don't have anything else, that's the truth
:32:05. > :32:07.of it. You know, a writer's life, I mean I didn't say it, Graham Greene
:32:08. > :32:11.said it, it's very boring and even if you're, you know, like Graham
:32:12. > :32:14.Greene and take off to the jungles of South America, nevertheless most
:32:15. > :32:19.of the time you're sat in a room trying to write.
:32:20. > :32:22.But you do seem to feel equitable about it, it's something that recurs
:32:23. > :32:26.in your work, a kind of beadiness about the way artists can prey on
:32:27. > :32:34.the ordinary lives of ordinary people.
:32:35. > :32:37.Yes, well I do, I mean I suppose it's an awareness of how you use
:32:38. > :32:41.people when you're writing, it's a theme that runs right through The
:32:42. > :32:45.Lady in the Van and isn't really resolved in a way, except by her,
:32:46. > :32:56.she resolves it when she dies and has her last laugh. And it also
:32:57. > :33:00.occurs in Cocktail Sticks when my mother's line, a line that she said
:33:01. > :33:08.is quoted "by, I've given you some script." She said that, did she?
:33:09. > :33:12.Yeah, she said that and she would see my eyes light up if she said
:33:13. > :33:16.something daft or something that's quotable and in those days I used to
:33:17. > :33:20.keep notebooks and I would run away an write it down in my notebook. I
:33:21. > :33:24.stopped keeping notebooks later on, because I had so many, but you know,
:33:25. > :33:31.she was quite right, she did give me some script and so did my dad, but
:33:32. > :33:34.in a much quieter way. You don't ever give yourself an easy time
:33:35. > :33:40.though in the way you exploit the life around you. Your play Enjoy
:33:41. > :33:43.imagines the last back to back in Leeds turned into a museum, long
:33:44. > :33:46.before such things started to happen, it is actually quite a
:33:47. > :33:50.prophetic play and was much more successful when it was revived
:33:51. > :33:53.recently in the West End than it was when it was originally produced, but
:33:54. > :33:56.you do feel distinctly uneasy about the way maybe you have embalmed a
:33:57. > :34:07.particular generation of the Yorkshire working class. I am uneasy
:34:08. > :34:11.about it, but I never thought of it as giving myself a hard time, it's
:34:12. > :34:18.just another instance of something you can't resolve and that's what
:34:19. > :34:22.the play is about really. On the other hand, one of the things that
:34:23. > :34:26.surprised me looking back over your work was how often you come back to
:34:27. > :34:29.marriages which are maybe a little bit like your parents, the marriage
:34:30. > :34:32.in Sunset Across the Bay, the marriage between the king and queen
:34:33. > :34:35.in the Madness of George III, marriages which are secure and
:34:36. > :34:37.comfortable, but on the edge of being undermined or even
:34:38. > :34:49.comprehensibly undermined by boredom, by loss, by missed
:34:50. > :34:55.opportunity or even madness. Or shyness. Yes, I suppose that's true,
:34:56. > :34:58.I suppose that also comes particularly from my parents, who
:34:59. > :35:01.were very happily married, but who didn't have any expectations really,
:35:02. > :35:08.but at the same time they felt that they wanted to break out somehow. I
:35:09. > :35:12.could see all that in myself as well, but all these are things mixed
:35:13. > :35:17.up with when people say "why do you write?" That's why I write, because
:35:18. > :35:22.of all these unanswered questions really.
:35:23. > :35:25.Yeah, but you seem to be drawn more to characters who miss their
:35:26. > :35:32.opportunities rather than characters who seize them. Yes, I suppose that
:35:33. > :35:36.is true. A lot of that will be to do with sex I suppose really. I think
:35:37. > :35:40.looking back on your life and the things you remember are the things
:35:41. > :35:46.that you didn't do, Habeas Corpus is all about that in a farcical way,
:35:47. > :35:49.but everybody feels that, I'm sure. Thora Hird's Talking Head waiting
:35:50. > :35:57.for the telegram is maybe the most poignant expression of exactly that.
:35:58. > :36:02.We can take a look at that now. I gave him his tea and then we went
:36:03. > :36:06.in and sat in the front room and he started undoing my buttons and
:36:07. > :36:10.kissing and whatnot. Only I'd wanted to look nice, so I'd put on my best
:36:11. > :36:24.frock and he couldn't fathom how it unfastened. I suggested taking it
:36:25. > :36:29.off. But I didn't. That poor lamb, he got so fed up with these flaming
:36:30. > :36:37.button things in the finish he gave up. He'd taken his leggings off,
:36:38. > :36:42.he's put his, because they were hot. And he was in his shirt sleeves.
:36:43. > :36:49.They were right rough khaki shirts then, real cheap and itchy. Anyway,
:36:50. > :36:52.in the finish he gets up off the sofa and says, "oh, hang this lot,"
:36:53. > :37:00.and he takes his shirt off and everything else besides. Doesn't say
:37:01. > :37:11.a word, just takes it all off and stands there on the heart rug. And
:37:12. > :37:18.he looked a picture, with the fire and all that. Not a mark on him. And
:37:19. > :37:34.then he says, "take your clothes off now." And I didn't. I didn't. And I
:37:35. > :37:38.wanted him so much. I don't know, it was just the way I'd been brought up
:37:39. > :37:43.and he stands there looking down at me and then he picks his clothes up
:37:44. > :37:58.and he goes next door and after a bit I heard the front door bang.
:37:59. > :38:06.See, they look old in photographs compared to how they look now, only
:38:07. > :38:15.they weren't. They were lads, same as you. And just as grand. I saw the
:38:16. > :38:30.yellow thing the boy at the back brings, his sister fetched it round.
:38:31. > :38:36.A telegram. And a vanilla slice for Mam. Then later on they had the
:38:37. > :38:45.letter, rang in to me from the king, same as everybody did who lost
:38:46. > :38:48.somebody. It's extraordinarily moving, that,
:38:49. > :38:52.it's a whole life blighted by not going to bed, by not having sex with
:38:53. > :38:56.the fiance that went off and got killed in the first world war and
:38:57. > :39:07.that comes up it seems to me over and over, even the end of The
:39:08. > :39:11.History Boys. During the play you've got these 18 year old lads whose
:39:12. > :39:15.lives are in front of them and you allow them, all of them to tell us
:39:16. > :39:23.at the end of the play what their lives amounted to and none of them
:39:24. > :39:27.amounted to very much really. I suppose it's my view of my own
:39:28. > :39:30.life, except that I've been very, very lucky, you know, I met my
:39:31. > :39:35.partner quite late in life and so the last of my life was much happier
:39:36. > :39:47.than the first part, but also I think it's in my nature really to
:39:48. > :39:52.feel somehow that one's missed out. I mean, I think even when I was 17 I
:39:53. > :40:01.was thinking that, you know, it's a joke as well though.
:40:02. > :40:06.Yeah, it's surprising how few of the Talking Heads are a joke. Those are
:40:07. > :40:09.people right on the margin, there's the Ripper's wife, there's a
:40:10. > :40:12.paedophile, there's this poor old lady who missed out on the one thing
:40:13. > :40:15.that she's convinced would have brought her happiness, there's the
:40:16. > :40:18.peeping Tom and all of them absolutely naked, honest and if not
:40:19. > :40:37.soliciting our sympathy, certainly winning it.
:40:38. > :40:40.That seems to me to be a radical project to ask a television audience
:40:41. > :40:44.to go with those people. I mean I can't say anything really,
:40:45. > :40:51.I hope it's true but they came, not out of the blue, but they came like
:40:52. > :40:56.poems. The first Talking Head I wrote, which was before the series,
:40:57. > :41:00.was A Woman of No Importance for Patricia Wright, which is about a
:41:01. > :41:11.woman who was dying and then I wrote these next six quite quickly. Then
:41:12. > :41:16.there was a gap and then I wrote another six and people write to me
:41:17. > :41:20.and say "would you like to come and talk to us? Perhaps you could write
:41:21. > :41:23.a Talking Head," and you know, if I could just run it off and there's
:41:24. > :41:27.nothing I would like more, you know, but you know, they came from I
:41:28. > :41:36.suppose deep down, but it's not there anymore, I can't write them.
:41:37. > :41:39.Thora Hird, like John Gielgud and Alec Guinness and later Richard
:41:40. > :41:43.Griffiths and Nigel Hawthorne and Maggie Smith, she was a real muse
:41:44. > :41:48.for you. Yes, she was a consummate
:41:49. > :41:52.professional. She did a lot of rubbish, but whatever she did she
:41:53. > :41:56.did it with her whole heart and she was also an old fashioned actress in
:41:57. > :41:59.the sense that when she came to rehearsal, to radio rehearsals in
:42:00. > :42:02.Broadcasting House, she would come fully in all her full gear, you
:42:03. > :42:07.know, looking very glamorous as she saw it and she had a white coat and
:42:08. > :42:10.a yellow hat and she'd say, "I've come as a poached egg," but you
:42:11. > :42:22.know, she dressed up for the rehearsal, because that's what
:42:23. > :42:29.actresses did and I like all that. Yeah. And she had an enormous
:42:30. > :42:33.respect, rather like my parents, for the written word and if you were a
:42:34. > :42:36.writer that was something in her eyes and in Waiting for the Telegram
:42:37. > :42:41.it starts off with her speech and she said he sent me this play and in
:42:42. > :42:45.the first speech, I mean honestly, I don't know, I mean Alan Bennett is
:42:46. > :42:59.the only person I'd say a swear word for. And I thought there are no
:43:00. > :43:03.swear words in it and then I realised the swear word she meant
:43:04. > :43:13.was "penis", which occurs in the first speech. Which was a swear word
:43:14. > :43:16.in Thora's book, but it was quite a risky script from her point, a
:43:17. > :43:24.risque script from her point of view.
:43:25. > :43:32.She says "Violet, I have to ask you this. Was the penis erect?" I said
:43:33. > :43:36.Nurse Babty, that's not a word I would use. She said, "erect"? I said
:43:37. > :43:39."no, the other." She said "well Violet, you've had what we call a
:43:40. > :43:43.stroke. You're sometimes funny with words." I said, "I'm not funny with
:43:44. > :43:49.that word." She said "things have changed now, Violet. Penis is its
:43:50. > :43:55.name. All the other names are just trying to make it more acceptable."
:43:56. > :44:05."Language is a weapon, Violet, we're at war." I said, "who with?" She
:44:06. > :44:09.said "men." Right out there on the margins are
:44:10. > :44:13.the spies who you've come back to several times, there's Alec Guinness
:44:14. > :44:16.in The Old Country, Alan Bates in An Englishman Abroad and there's also
:44:17. > :44:17.your play about Anthony Blunt, A Question of Attribution. We'll take
:44:18. > :44:39.a look at that I hadn't planned on calling, but I
:44:40. > :44:50.saw your light was on. I suppose it's what you'd call a function. Who
:44:51. > :44:55.was there? Oh, everybody. Including your boss. We chatted. Do you not
:44:56. > :44:59.get invited to occasions like that? No. You should. I'd feel a bit lost.
:45:00. > :45:03.Oh, I don't think so. They were all there. Who? The great and the good,
:45:04. > :45:10.everybody on your list. Your little list. Drink? Yeah, thanks. We've
:45:11. > :45:16.come to the end of the road, you know? Yes, yes, yes. More and more
:45:17. > :45:21.questions are being asked. We have to go back on our undertaking. The
:45:22. > :45:31.consequences are gonna be embarrassing, not just for you but
:45:32. > :45:34.for us too. Ice? It'll be painful. You'll be the object of scrutiny,
:45:35. > :45:43.explanations will be sought after. Your history gone into. You will be
:45:44. > :45:49.named. Attributed. It's a fake, I shall of course attract more
:45:50. > :45:52.interest than the genuine article. We know there were five, Burgess,
:45:53. > :45:59.MacLean the first two, Philby the Third, you're the fourth, who's the
:46:00. > :46:07.five? You don't give me his name I can't save you. Would you care to
:46:08. > :46:12.see my x-rays? That's James Fox and David Calder in
:46:13. > :46:17.A Question of Attribution. What is it about spies? Why have you come
:46:18. > :46:21.back to them over and over? Well people say it's because I'm gay, but
:46:22. > :46:26.it never seemed to me there was much connection between that, even though
:46:27. > :46:36.so many of the spies were. I liked the notion of the Cambridge spies
:46:37. > :46:39.betraying their class. It's an ambiguity about England as well,
:46:40. > :46:42.about being in many ways very conservative with a small C about
:46:43. > :46:45.England and yet knowing there's so much wrong with it that spying is
:46:46. > :46:48.excusable, because they thought that they were doing something to improve
:46:49. > :47:02.things really, they were morally on the right side.
:47:03. > :47:05.None of the spies spied for money and the treason they're supposed to
:47:06. > :47:17.have committed doesn't nowadays seem to me to be a particularly important
:47:18. > :47:21.crime. And you know, the Edward Snowden stuff, I'm wholly on his
:47:22. > :47:28.side really, that's by the way, but anyway.
:47:29. > :47:31.And Habit of Art you work through that tension between concealment and
:47:32. > :47:38.revelation, between letting it all hang out, which is W. H. Auden and
:47:39. > :47:41.deriving fantastic dramatic power from holding it all in, which is
:47:42. > :47:54.Benjamin Britten and that's at the heart of that play. Auden talks
:47:55. > :47:58.about how his later work is more scrupulous than his earlier work and
:47:59. > :48:04.he berates Britten later on in the play for not being fully honest in
:48:05. > :48:10.his operas. We've got a clip from that now. There are some writers who
:48:11. > :48:13.set their sights on the Nobel Prize even before they pick up the pen. Is
:48:14. > :48:17.like that and I'm afraid Thomas Mann. Never underestimate the role
:48:18. > :48:20.of the will in the artistic life. Some writers are all will. Talent
:48:21. > :48:26.you can dispense with, but not will. The will is paramount. Not joy, not
:48:27. > :48:36.delight, but grin application. What were we talking about? Thomas Mann,
:48:37. > :48:41.Death in Venice. Two of his sisters committed suicide, as did two of his
:48:42. > :48:53.sons. He was a genuine artist. Chastity Evans. Yes. Where's Peter?
:48:54. > :48:57.I said Toronto. Do you repeat yourself? They tell me I do, but its
:48:58. > :49:12.not my fault. They treat me like an oddicle and that's what oddicles do,
:49:13. > :49:15.they repeat themselves. Arid? What? Your music, I wouldn't have said it
:49:16. > :49:18.was arid. Detached, dispassionate, attuned something of an indulgence,
:49:19. > :49:26.but not arid. Do you always mean what you write? Well in the sense
:49:27. > :49:31.that Shostakovich sometimes doesn't. Yes, I think so. Don't you? Well I
:49:32. > :49:35.do now, I didn't always. As a young man I used to leave meaning to
:49:36. > :49:39.chance. If it sounded alright I let the meaning take care of itself,
:49:40. > :49:42.that's why I find some of my early stuff so embarrassing. But in those
:49:43. > :49:46.days I'd ask you what a line meant and rather than explain it you'd
:49:47. > :49:49.just write another. Very naughty. Except that now I'm more scrupulous,
:49:50. > :49:53.I make an effort to tell the truth and people say it's dull and my
:49:54. > :49:56.early stuff is better. That's Richard Griffiths as Auden and Alex
:49:57. > :49:59.Jennings as Benjamin Britten. Do you feel that your later work has become
:50:00. > :50:03.more open and more scrupulous? Oh yes, I do. I don't care what people
:50:04. > :50:06.think about me and my objection about people knowing more about
:50:07. > :50:11.one's private life was that I didn't want to be put in a pigeonhole, I
:50:12. > :50:15.didn't want to be labelled as gay and that was it, you know. I just
:50:16. > :50:22.wanted it to be, you know, I wanted to be my own man, as it were. And
:50:23. > :50:26.Habit of Art it feel almost as if Auden is who you want to be and
:50:27. > :50:29.Britten is who you fear you are. Auden is out there soliciting
:50:30. > :50:32.blowjobs off rent boys and mistaking respectable biographers for the rent
:50:33. > :50:40.boy and Britten is uptight and restrained. Britten didn't really
:50:41. > :50:44.loosen up as he got older, I mean he remained very much as he'd always
:50:45. > :50:49.been and again it's an unresolved thing, which you have to write the
:50:50. > :50:53.play in order to resolve. Yeah and as you say in Cocktail Sticks, which
:50:54. > :50:56.is your recent one act play, your most recent one act play about
:50:57. > :51:01.yourself, you don't put yourself in what you write, you find yourself
:51:02. > :51:05.there. Yes, I think that's absolutely true. In a way nowhere is
:51:06. > :51:08.that more marked than in The Lady in the Van, which is ostensibly about
:51:09. > :51:17.Miss Shepherd, certainly in the play, as much about Alan Bennett as
:51:18. > :51:21.it is about Miss Shepherd. We never filmed The Lady in the Van,
:51:22. > :51:25.but it exists obviously as a memoir. I wondered if you would read
:51:26. > :51:35.something from it and then we could talk about how we might film it if
:51:36. > :51:39.we do. I maybe should explain that Miss
:51:40. > :51:43.Shepherd was a woman who lived in a van in the street I lived in, in
:51:44. > :51:47.Camden Town and at some point when the council put down yellow lines
:51:48. > :51:50.and I said well, she'd better bring the van into my garden, which is
:51:51. > :51:57.quite small, thinking this would be three months or so and it turned out
:51:58. > :52:05.to be for 15 years. Anyway, this is something that happened in 1975.
:52:06. > :52:08.Miss Shepherd rings and when I open the door she makes a beeline for the
:52:09. > :52:13.kitchen stairs. "I'd like to see you, I've called several times. I
:52:14. > :52:19.wonder whether I can use the toilet first." I say, "I think this is
:52:20. > :52:23.pushing it a bit." "I'm not pushing it at all, I'll just do the
:52:24. > :52:26.interview better if I can use the toilet first." Afterwards she sits
:52:27. > :52:29.down in her green Mac and purple headscarf, the knuckles of one
:52:30. > :52:32.large, mottled hand resting on the clean scrubbed table and explains
:52:33. > :52:40.how she's devised a method of getting on the wireless. "Was to ask
:52:41. > :52:46.the BBC to give me a phone in programme, something someone like
:52:47. > :52:52.you could get put on in a jiffy. Perhaps there would be gaps filled
:52:53. > :52:55.with nice, classical music. I know one, Prelude in Liebestraum by
:52:56. > :53:00.Liszt, I believe he was a Catholic priest. It means love's dream, only
:53:01. > :53:03.not the sexy stuff, it's the love of God and the sanctification of labour
:53:04. > :53:10.and so on, which would recommend it to celibates like you and me,
:53:11. > :53:13.possibly." Shocked at this tentative bracketing of our conditions I
:53:14. > :53:17.quickly get rid of her and though it's a bitter cold night, I open the
:53:18. > :53:26.windows wide to get rid of the smell.
:53:27. > :53:30.Well with the play you wrote a play based on your memoir with Maggie
:53:31. > :53:33.Smith and now nearly 15 years later we're trying to pitch it as a movie,
:53:34. > :53:40.we're going around with our begging bowls. Maybe what I could do is tell
:53:41. > :53:44.you some of the things that are confusing the movie people, we could
:53:45. > :53:48.work it out here in front of the camera. Those who don't know the
:53:49. > :53:52.story remain confused about what on earth you were doing and why you let
:53:53. > :53:57.her in and why you let her stay there.
:53:58. > :54:01.Well it wasn't a one off decision, as it were. The decision I made was,
:54:02. > :54:05.as I said, that she could come in for three months or so and then she
:54:06. > :54:12.would go on with the van and go somewhere else. Her will was
:54:13. > :54:19.immensely strong and she was determined to stay. And it was just
:54:20. > :54:25.too much trouble to get rid of her really and that's one way of looking
:54:26. > :54:29.at it. But I think it's also laziness, I just, you know, it would
:54:30. > :54:32.have been such a fag to try and get rid of her, she probably had
:54:33. > :54:39.squatter's rights after a year or so.
:54:40. > :54:43.You're pretty ruthless about yourself in the memoir and in the
:54:44. > :54:46.play and in the play two actors played you, because you divide
:54:47. > :54:49.yourself into the writer and the landlord. The landlord is the bulk
:54:50. > :54:53.of it, the major character, the householder who allows this old lady
:54:54. > :54:56.to drive her van into his drive and stay there, the writer who
:54:57. > :54:59.occasionally separates from the landlord, initially reluctant to
:55:00. > :55:06.have anything to do with this ridiculous story, he's got enough
:55:07. > :55:09.old ladies in his life already. He's writing about his mother, he's
:55:10. > :55:12.writing about all his old aunties; the writer eventually realises that
:55:13. > :55:17.this is the best material he's ever gonna get and he then exploits her
:55:18. > :55:20.and I think one of the things you never quite satisfy yourself about
:55:21. > :55:25.in the story and I hope in the film is who is the more ruthless of the
:55:26. > :55:29.two of you, the writer who is going to turn her into a national myth or
:55:30. > :55:33.she who takes 14 years of your life by living in your drive?
:55:34. > :55:41.I think she's probably more ruthless, I think she never gave an
:55:42. > :55:45.inch. But the notion that I invited her in, in order to write about her
:55:46. > :55:49.is so ludicrous. Richard Ingram's always took this view in Private Eye
:55:50. > :55:55.and it's so ludicrous as who would do that anyway. But she had an iron
:55:56. > :56:01.will, she never at any point said "thank you" for anything. And I
:56:02. > :56:06.didn't want to be thanked, but at the same time if she had thanked you
:56:07. > :56:09.it would have been a chink in her armour and she never exposed that
:56:10. > :56:13.chink, you know, and it's why she survived living on the street really
:56:14. > :56:27.and had survived all her life and quite a dramatic life it was. I
:56:28. > :56:31.ended up slightly when I found out the facts of her life thinking well,
:56:32. > :56:35.she's had a much more dramatic life than I've had and so in a sense I
:56:36. > :56:42.became almost envious of her, which is absurd. I mean, as I say in the
:56:43. > :56:46.book, it was like Dickens when she died, you know, the whole thing, you
:56:47. > :56:53.could make sense of her life and all the facts were laid out.
:56:54. > :56:57.Yeah, and amongst the things we're trying to do at the moment is to
:56:58. > :57:00.engineer the movie so that the revelations are spread through its
:57:01. > :57:05.two hours rather than it all come tumbling out at the end. Well it's
:57:06. > :57:08.easier to do that on film than it was on stage, you couldn't really
:57:09. > :57:12.have done it on stage. But to return to somewhere near where we began,
:57:13. > :57:16.you may be 80, but we're still doing new stuff, so there's lots to come.
:57:17. > :57:22.Well I don't know there's lots to come. There's that to come, all
:57:23. > :57:25.being well. I find it harder and harder to write, but then I always
:57:26. > :57:29.have found it hard to write, so I'm at the stage of covering reams and
:57:30. > :57:37.reams of paper and not getting anywhere, but that's always been the
:57:38. > :57:40.case. You say it to people, and I never really believe in writer's
:57:41. > :57:43.block, I think all writing is writer's block really, it's all so
:57:44. > :57:48.hard, but I don't think it's tragically hard or anything like
:57:49. > :57:52.that, it's difficult. But people say oh well, you've done so much and it
:57:53. > :57:55.doesn't seem to me I've done so much, but the stuff you've written
:57:56. > :58:00.doesn't seem to be like upholstery, it's not something you can settle
:58:01. > :58:04.back in and think oh well I did that and I've done so many plays and so
:58:05. > :58:07.on and it's not a comfort that you've done all this stuff, it's
:58:08. > :58:22.just a rebuke as much as anything else.
:58:23. > :58:26.You think well I can't do it now and writing is about now, it's about
:58:27. > :58:29.what you're doing this morning, you know, what you're sitting at the
:58:30. > :58:36.table, staring out of the window and trying to do and that's still the
:58:37. > :58:38.situation now whatever age I am. Well I'm looking forward to as much
:58:39. > :58:51.more as you care to write.