0:00:02 > 0:00:06Welcome to A Taste of My Life, the show that serves up people's lives on a plate.
0:00:27 > 0:00:33Everything we eat and cook paints a revealing picture of who we are, and how we live our lives.
0:00:33 > 0:00:39Which is why we'll be taking a culinary trip down memory lane with our very special guest.
0:00:39 > 0:00:45Perhaps the first thing to say about today's guest is he's an intensely private man
0:00:45 > 0:00:50who finds himself reluctantly in the limelight over and over again,
0:00:50 > 0:00:54thanks to his wit and wry observations of English life.
0:00:54 > 0:00:59He's entertained audiences and viewers on stage, in the cinema,
0:00:59 > 0:01:03and most notably with his landmark television series, Talking Heads.
0:01:03 > 0:01:06We had a spot of excitement yesterday.
0:01:06 > 0:01:09We ran into a bit of Mother's past.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13I said to her, "I didn't know you had a past. I thought I was your past."
0:01:13 > 0:01:17He's won critical acclaim at every stage of his life,
0:01:17 > 0:01:22with Beyond The Fringe in the 1960s, The Madness Of King George in the nineties.
0:01:22 > 0:01:28And most recently with his play, The History Boys which won a staggering six Tony awards.
0:01:28 > 0:01:35Yes, I'm extremely privileged to be spending time in the kitchen with playwright Alan Bennett.
0:01:35 > 0:01:41Coming up today's show, Alan remembers eating out with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
0:01:41 > 0:01:46Peter Cook particularly was very much a man of the world.
0:01:46 > 0:01:52Patricia Routledge, the woman behind Hyacinth Bouquet, remembers dining out with Alan.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Alan, it's down memory lane.
0:01:55 > 0:02:00There was an intake of breath and you said, "Oh, no, not white meat!"
0:02:00 > 0:02:03And he confesses how his mind was on other things
0:02:03 > 0:02:07when his Broadway hit, The History Boys, won six Tony awards.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10The doorman adjusted my tie without so much as a by-your-leave,
0:02:10 > 0:02:15and he was the first of about 20 people in the course of the evening who said, "Excuse me."
0:02:15 > 0:02:18And everybody adjusted my tie!
0:02:23 > 0:02:26Alan Bennett, welcome to A Taste Of My Life.
0:02:26 > 0:02:32You were born in Leeds in 1934.
0:02:32 > 0:02:33And what were Mum and Dad like?
0:02:34 > 0:02:37My dad was a butcher.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41They were quite shy people. They both cooked in the house.
0:02:41 > 0:02:49And you couldn't distinguish really who had cooked what, if my mother had cooked it or my father had cooked it.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52He didn't make what he called a lot of splother about it.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54But he just could cook.
0:02:54 > 0:02:58But the way they cooked, both of them, they cooked meat for a long, long time.
0:02:58 > 0:03:02You never had anything rare or medium rare.
0:03:02 > 0:03:03Even though he was a butcher?
0:03:03 > 0:03:08Never had even a medium-rare steak until I left home.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12So presumably, your father was cooking stews and pies.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15Yes, and the favourite was meat-and-potato pie.
0:03:15 > 0:03:21Pre-war dishes like Alan's dad's meat-and-potato pie are rarely made today.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25It's a real shame, as this is an old-fashioned stomach filler.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29Again, it would be done with stewing steak, I suppose.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32And with a lot of fairly thin gravy.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35Take your time cooking the meat.
0:03:35 > 0:03:40As ever, the longer cooked, the longer savoured, giving the pie a much richer flavour.
0:03:42 > 0:03:45The crust would be soft underneath and crispy on top.
0:03:45 > 0:03:49I think that was my brother's favourite, as well as mine.
0:03:49 > 0:03:52He remembers exactly the same dishes that I do.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56- It's the best bit, the pastry, that soggy bit underneath. - That's right.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03Yes, a good old-fashioned crumbly pastry is the best topping for this dish.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09- This is the sort of thing that you'd eat at home midweek?- Yes.
0:04:09 > 0:04:14I don't think they'd put potatoes in, would they, now? I don't know, maybe.
0:04:14 > 0:04:21I've never seen one from since... I've certainly never eaten one since I was a child.
0:04:21 > 0:04:25You wouldn't have any sort of formal meals, would you?
0:04:25 > 0:04:27There wouldn't be the dinner party?
0:04:27 > 0:04:28No, no.
0:04:28 > 0:04:33The nearest you'd get to that would be high tea on the Sunday.
0:04:33 > 0:04:39But then that would be opening a tin of salmon, that would be the high point.
0:04:39 > 0:04:40Did you have a proper breakfast?
0:04:40 > 0:04:45No, my mother always thought everyone else in the nation did, but we didn't.
0:04:45 > 0:04:50She always assumed every other family sat down to a cooked breakfast,
0:04:50 > 0:04:53and then went off to work, or school or whatever.
0:04:53 > 0:04:59I think she never thought that she made it as a proper housewife, I think, really.
0:04:59 > 0:05:01And that was one of the reasons.
0:05:01 > 0:05:08She also thought that the life that you read about, or she read about, in women's magazines,
0:05:08 > 0:05:15was the life people led, so she thought people had coffee mornings and stuff like that.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18And it was total fantasy.
0:05:23 > 0:05:30In 1944, he gave up his job at the Co-op and went to work for a butcher in Guildford.
0:05:30 > 0:05:36This butcher, besides running a butchering business, also ran a horse-meat business on the side.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39And he used to go and fetch these carcasses on a big lorry,
0:05:39 > 0:05:44and sometimes I'd go with him on this lorry out into the depths of Surrey.
0:05:44 > 0:05:50And in the middle of a field, there would be a cow or a horse that had died a few days previously,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53so it was all blown up with its legs in the air.
0:05:53 > 0:06:01And they'd winch this onto the lorry and bring it back to a slaughterhouse in Guildford, and dismember it.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05Aged 10, I used to sit there and watch this.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09And not be nauseated, or think anything terrible.
0:06:09 > 0:06:13Just thinking, that was my life.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16All the sweet things, they're the things I remember when I was a kid.
0:06:16 > 0:06:21Yes, the thing my mum used to do best, was custard.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26We didn't call it custard tart, we just called it custard, but it was in a pastry case,
0:06:26 > 0:06:30with custard and nutmeg on the top.
0:06:30 > 0:06:32A timeless classic, the knack to custard tart
0:06:32 > 0:06:35is making sure the milk is hot enough
0:06:35 > 0:06:37when stirring it into the eggs and sugar.
0:06:37 > 0:06:39They were quite deep.
0:06:39 > 0:06:46They weren't like thin French custard tarts, they were quite plump and thick.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49- A deep layer, and it's quivery and wobbly.- Yes.
0:06:49 > 0:06:54A disaster sometimes when somehow the custard went under the pastry. I don't know how that happened.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58And it is that little bit of nutmeg or cinnamon on top.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01A nifty tip for not spilling the filling,
0:07:01 > 0:07:04is simply to top it up once it's already in the oven.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08- Can I offer you a little bit of custard tart?- Yes, indeed.
0:07:08 > 0:07:12I hope it's going to be as good as the ones you remember from home.
0:07:12 > 0:07:20- Well, it's the right size.- I think you described home life at one point as a celebration of ordinariness.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Well, yes.
0:07:22 > 0:07:28Except that when I was going through it, I wasn't inclined to celebrate it, probably.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31I rather wished it was less ordinary.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37That tastes the same.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39That's lovely.
0:07:39 > 0:07:40It didn't seem ordinary then?
0:07:40 > 0:07:44No, it did seem ordinary then, that was the thing.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48You just thought, "How can I ever get out of this?
0:07:48 > 0:07:51"How can I ever get out of Leeds?"
0:07:51 > 0:07:53My mother had a thing about,
0:07:53 > 0:07:59later on in life, she thought everybody had cocktail parties.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02And she couldn't pronounce "cocktail".
0:08:02 > 0:08:04She always called it, "cock-TAIL".
0:08:04 > 0:08:08And when they moved from Leeds to the village, she thought they ought to entertain
0:08:08 > 0:08:12and maybe have a cocktail party.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15But they never got round to it.
0:08:15 > 0:08:20When my father died, and she moved to live with my brother, I was clearing out the kitchen cupboards,
0:08:20 > 0:08:25and there at the back was a little tube of cocktail sticks.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30She'd had the curious notion that one day they'd live like other people.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41In the mid-1950s, Alan left home and went to Oxford University.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46It was during this time that his culinary experiences slowly started to mature.
0:08:47 > 0:08:51That was really the first time I'd eaten out at night.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54I've never eaten at night before.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58I can remember, and it was only about 8 o'clock,
0:08:58 > 0:09:03it wasn't late at night, but I remember thinking, "This is really living!"
0:09:03 > 0:09:06But there weren't that many cafes there.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08There weren't many restaurants opened.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11It was still fairly austere.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15I had a thing about eating in public.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18I was quite shy of it.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22Partly because when we were little,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25we used to go off hiking every Sunday with my mum and dad.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29We'd go very often through Guiseley near Leeds.
0:09:29 > 0:09:31There was a fish-and-chip shop.
0:09:31 > 0:09:39And you'd get the fish and chips and some bread and butter, and sit at the tables and have it.
0:09:42 > 0:09:47There was a big notice saying - patrons must not eat their own food.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50My mother always insisted on taking our own bread and butter.
0:09:50 > 0:09:57So we'd be having the fish and chips, and then she'd kind of smuggle slices of bread and butter onto the table.
0:09:57 > 0:10:03And I was petrified we'd be found out and turned out of the place.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07# Here's a little song I wrote
0:10:07 > 0:10:11# You might want to see it note for note, don't worry... #
0:10:11 > 0:10:15It remained with me really for years afterwards,
0:10:15 > 0:10:19the notion that I was going to be shamed in a restaurant.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22- The shame of being caught?- Yes.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25# When you worry, you make it double, don't worry... #
0:10:27 > 0:10:32The counters were always quite high up, and you couldn't see over the counter.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36And so it was quite a mysterious process.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41Was there a particular point when you knew what you wanted to do?
0:10:41 > 0:10:47I never had a notion that I was a writer for a very long time.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52In those days, you used to have to put your profession in your passport.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55My profession in my passport was teacher,
0:10:55 > 0:10:58from when I used to teach at Oxford.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03And I didn't change it from teacher, to writer,
0:11:03 > 0:11:08until I'd written, I think, probably three plays.
0:11:13 > 0:11:18How was it that you suddenly ended up on the stage with Beyond The Fringe?
0:11:18 > 0:11:23In my own college, they used to have what we called "smoking concerts".
0:11:23 > 0:11:27And so I started writing sketches for those, and then somebody picked that up
0:11:27 > 0:11:33and said, "Did I want to go to the Fringe of the Edinburgh Festival, with a revue?"
0:11:33 > 0:11:38And I did it, in 1959, and that turned out to be Beyond The Fringe.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42It was sheer accident really.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Then we did start eating in much grander style.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49Peter Cook particularly was very much a man of the world.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55He sort of introduced us to it.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59We used to go to a French restaurant on Cranbourne Street,
0:11:59 > 0:12:04opposite Leicester Square tube, called Chez Solange.
0:12:04 > 0:12:10- Oh, yes.- And it was a really nice, a old-fashioned French restaurant with banquettes on the side.
0:12:10 > 0:12:16And the waitresses were all middle-aged, the way they are in France, and very motherly.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19But it was quite a posh restaurant.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22And I used to go with Dudley Moore quite a lot.
0:12:22 > 0:12:29And we both of us had the same thing, which was a globe artichoke, an artichoke vinaigrette.
0:12:29 > 0:12:34Globe artichokes are frighteningly simple to cook, but rather frightening to eat.
0:12:34 > 0:12:39Cut off the stem and boil in salty water with a lemon for half an hour.
0:12:39 > 0:12:46I was very pleased with myself, that I actually knew how to eat a globe artichoke,
0:12:46 > 0:12:51- which is a complicated procedure. - Especially with people watching. - That's right.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55And this thing of actually picking food up in your fingers.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06I think the only one I've eaten publicly, I didn't eat the choke.
0:13:06 > 0:13:10I knew I was supposed to eat it, but I wasn't sure how.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13- And I didn't want people to know I didn't.- Oh, I'm very sophisticated!
0:13:14 > 0:13:20Really, if you think about it, at this point, you must have felt, "I'm actually quite successful."
0:13:20 > 0:13:23Because it was certainly very well reviewed.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27Oh, yes. No, no. When you're young, you don't think like that.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31It's not something you'd striven for, it just happened.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34Maybe you don't enjoy it as much for that reason, I don't know.
0:13:34 > 0:13:41Only when you can easily detach the leaves with a light tug, will you know this creature is ready to eat.
0:13:45 > 0:13:47This is the sort of thing
0:13:47 > 0:13:52that I would be really quite terrified of, if somebody presented me with this
0:13:52 > 0:13:56when I was younger. I wouldn't know what to do with it.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00A nightmare to eat if you were having lunch at Buckingham Palace, I'd have thought.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03Or anywhere where you don't want to make a mess.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07Is there that thing of audiences appreciating something, you suddenly think,
0:14:07 > 0:14:12"Those people are applauding what I've written or what I've done."
0:14:12 > 0:14:15And certainly the early bits with Beyond The Fringe,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19when you're working out which of you, Peter Cook, or Jonathan Miller,
0:14:19 > 0:14:21who's getting the most attention?
0:14:21 > 0:14:23Yes, there was all of that.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25We were all very competitive.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30That was one of the joys of going on to do something on one's own,
0:14:30 > 0:14:33that you weren't competing with anyone any more.
0:14:33 > 0:14:38The subsequent history of Peter and Dudley was a lot to do with that,
0:14:38 > 0:14:40I think, really, between the two of them.
0:14:40 > 0:14:46Still to come on A Taste Of My Life - Alan reveals his frustrations with cooking.
0:14:46 > 0:14:53You go to all this trouble and cook these elaborate meals and then all people do is eat them.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57He tells us the simple secret to his rice pudding.
0:14:58 > 0:15:02- This is your magic ingredient, isn't it?- Well...
0:15:02 > 0:15:04Evaporated milk.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09And he talks about his relief, surviving his recent battle with cancer.
0:15:09 > 0:15:15In Untold Stories, there was a point when you said you thought the book would be published posthumously.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17I didn't want it to be published posthumously.
0:15:17 > 0:15:22I'm rather happy to have been around when it came out.
0:15:27 > 0:15:34So, I'm absolutely fascinated by the thought of Alan Bennett the cook. What sort of cook are you?
0:15:34 > 0:15:36I can't do quick things.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39It's all slow cooking. I can't flash fry or anything like that.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42No. You can do rice pudding.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44Yes, I can do rice pudding.
0:15:44 > 0:15:47The trouble with cooking is that, you go to all this trouble,
0:15:47 > 0:15:54you cook these elaborate meals and then all people do is eat them!
0:15:54 > 0:15:59And you have, you want...something more permanent than that, really.
0:15:59 > 0:16:01I suppose that's why I write.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06Once they've eaten it, that's it.
0:16:06 > 0:16:11If we pop down to the kitchen at some point, would you show me your rice pudding?
0:16:11 > 0:16:13Show me how you do it. I would love to know.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22Your rice pudding is quite a simple one, isn't it?
0:16:22 > 0:16:25Well, it is, rather. It's just two of everything, really.
0:16:25 > 0:16:30Two spoons of rice, two spoons of sugar, Gas Mark 2 for two hours.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39Now, this is your magic ingredient, isn't it?
0:16:41 > 0:16:43Well... Evaporated milk.
0:16:50 > 0:16:54It's just the eggs and sugar and then evaporated milk.
0:16:54 > 0:16:59I like it cold. If you let it go cold, it goes much thicker.
0:16:59 > 0:17:01And a bit of vanilla extract.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Do you ever put any cinnamon in?
0:17:16 > 0:17:21- No. Just nutmeg. I sometimes have some jam with it.- Do you stir your jam in, or leave it in the lumps?
0:17:21 > 0:17:23I don't have a doctrinaire approach.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26You don't have a perfection pudding.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30I was thinking of all the things that you've done over the years
0:17:30 > 0:17:35and I was interested in how you choose what to do.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39For instance, with The Madness Of King George, why him in particular?
0:17:39 > 0:17:42- What was the fascination? - It was such a self-contained subject.
0:17:42 > 0:17:49I had known about it for years because I was a historian.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53I knew that he got ill suddenly and he recovered suddenly,
0:17:53 > 0:17:57which makes it ideal for a play.
0:17:57 > 0:18:00And also, he was an interesting character.
0:18:02 > 0:18:07If you can find a character who takes over the play, as it were,
0:18:07 > 0:18:13then the play doesn't quite write itself, but it's much easier to do.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25Oh, it's lovely. Mmm!
0:18:25 > 0:18:27It's not bad, is it?
0:18:27 > 0:18:31Oh, no, it is good. Didn't have to be done for three hours like mine, either.
0:18:31 > 0:18:37It's a compound adjective formed by putting "un" in front of the noun or verb, of course.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Unkissed, unrejoicing...
0:18:43 > 0:18:46unconfessed.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49People love the things that you do so much.
0:18:49 > 0:18:54How does that sit with the fact that you're very much a private man?
0:18:54 > 0:18:56- Don't know.- It doesn't bother you?
0:18:56 > 0:19:01Well... I'm trying to be as gracious as possible.
0:19:01 > 0:19:06You avoid as much of the hoo-hah as possible. Or I do.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10- You have avoided a few awards ceremonies. - But at the same time, the Tonys...
0:19:10 > 0:19:13We went over for the Tonys. And I'm glad we did.
0:19:13 > 0:19:19I was wearing a bow tie that I had tied myself
0:19:19 > 0:19:23and it was already on the skew when we left the house.
0:19:23 > 0:19:29When we got out of the cab, the doorman adjusted my tie without so much as a by-your-leave.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33And he was the first of about 20 people in the course of the evening.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36And everybody adjusted my tie.
0:19:41 > 0:19:47I know that you have said that you didn't want to watch the messages
0:19:47 > 0:19:50that we have got from some of your friends.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53But we have got a message from Patricia Routledge.
0:19:55 > 0:19:59What was she like to work with?
0:19:59 > 0:20:06She's very... Her sense of timing is superb.
0:20:06 > 0:20:09It's literally split-second,
0:20:09 > 0:20:15in the sense that she can look at the audience and look at the camera in the same second.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17And very few people can do that.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20I know you don't want to see her message until later.
0:20:20 > 0:20:24The viewers, I know would love to see it. And so would I.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32Alan, it's down memory lane which I know you love.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37I have got the very thing for you - a real treat.
0:20:37 > 0:20:43He wrote the first monologue ever, for me, called A Woman Of No Importance.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45I don't run to the doctor every five minutes.
0:20:47 > 0:20:50On the last occasion, Dr Copland sat me down
0:20:50 > 0:20:57and said, "Miss Schofield, if I saw my other patients as seldom as I see you, I should be out of business."
0:20:57 > 0:21:00We laughed.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04I'm going to take you back over 20 years.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07We stayed at a little inn.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11And we decided we would invite you to dinner,
0:21:11 > 0:21:15as we knew that you were up there on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border.
0:21:15 > 0:21:20We had a small sherry before dinner in the bar.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22There were only three of us to dine that night.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26And the menu was brought for our scrutiny.
0:21:29 > 0:21:35Your eyes fell upon the first item of the starters.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39And you pronounced it with all the weight of a High Court judge
0:21:39 > 0:21:44presiding over a very serious case of racial discrimination.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46White...bait.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49White...bait.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54Well, you're going to have whitebait here today.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56A little seasoned flour.
0:21:58 > 0:21:59Dry fish.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02Look at them. Wonderful.
0:22:02 > 0:22:08His importance is underestimated and has been for a long time.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12I think now, with the crowning glory of History Boys,
0:22:12 > 0:22:20which has blazed a trail throughout the East and throughout the West.
0:22:20 > 0:22:28And he's finally getting his desserts and perhaps those critics who spike and pick
0:22:28 > 0:22:32at his earlier work will reassess it.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37There was an intake of breath and you said, "Oh, no, not whitebait.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40"I can never resist a Florida cocktail".
0:22:42 > 0:22:44So it shall be yours.
0:22:48 > 0:22:53Complete with maraschino cherry, of course.
0:22:53 > 0:22:56I should have deep red fingernails and my hair hanging over my face
0:22:56 > 0:22:59but I had a lot to do this morning.
0:22:59 > 0:23:01I shall join you. Bon appetite.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14We've got your culinary heaven and hell all on one table here.
0:23:16 > 0:23:21Cheese on toast. Do you like a bit of bacon with it?
0:23:21 > 0:23:24Is this a favourite of yours, cheese on toast?
0:23:24 > 0:23:26Yes.
0:23:26 > 0:23:32If you say it's comfort food, that implies that one eats it when you're miserable,
0:23:32 > 0:23:35but we just like it.
0:23:35 > 0:23:37I actually don't like...
0:23:37 > 0:23:39I don't take any comfort in food.
0:23:39 > 0:23:44If I'm anxious or need cheering up,
0:23:44 > 0:23:47eating is not what I do, really.
0:23:48 > 0:23:54- There must have been times in your life, maybe, when you weren't so happy.- If I'm unhappy, I don't eat.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56It's the best way to slim, really.
0:23:56 > 0:24:01It seems very strange to me that if you are anxious, and then you eat...
0:24:01 > 0:24:06But I'm interested that you don't find that there's a been a moment
0:24:06 > 0:24:10when you wanted to desperately turn to a bit of cheese on toast to make yourself feel better.
0:24:10 > 0:24:15That's comforting. That's what I call comfort food. It makes me feel good.
0:24:15 > 0:24:16I don't need comforting!
0:24:20 > 0:24:25There is a picture of Alan Bennett that is painted that is quite comforting.
0:24:25 > 0:24:27It's quite a cuddly thing.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30But you aren't happy with that?
0:24:30 > 0:24:34- It doesn't seem like me.- You don't recognise this image?
0:24:34 > 0:24:40No. When I said earlier on,
0:24:40 > 0:24:44when I was a child watching these carcasses being dismembered,
0:24:44 > 0:24:50I feel that much closer to me than the toasted teacake notion, really.
0:24:54 > 0:24:59And now, for Alan's final feast, I'm rustling up a coffee and walnut cake.
0:25:04 > 0:25:11A beautifully comforting and luscious combination of flavours - this is a warm and delightful treat
0:25:11 > 0:25:14over which to reflect on one's life's achievements.
0:25:33 > 0:25:39With plenty of buttercream, this would have you gasping for breath if you tackled it on your own.
0:25:39 > 0:25:46And rounding it all off, Alan has requested that old reliable - a good, old-fashioned cup of tea.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52Alan, I think of a final feast as being incredibly lavish.
0:25:52 > 0:25:56A table full of food. But yours is elegant in its simplicity, really.
0:25:56 > 0:26:02I can't imagine being hungry in those circumstances - that's partly what it is.
0:26:02 > 0:26:08And the notion of a final feast is, to me, rather suspect.
0:26:08 > 0:26:10What next?
0:26:10 > 0:26:13Not next to eat.
0:26:13 > 0:26:16I don't know.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18More of the same, probably.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22I hope...
0:26:22 > 0:26:23I'm just thankful to be...
0:26:23 > 0:26:27still employable, really.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32- Is there anything you haven't done that you would like to do? - I don't see it like that.
0:26:32 > 0:26:37I just see it in terms of going to the table each day
0:26:37 > 0:26:39and just trying to do a bit more. That's all.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42Have you any regrets? Not necessarily work-wise.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45It all depends what sort of life you want.
0:26:45 > 0:26:53A writer's life is quite a dull life, unless you're that sort of writer, you don't necessarily travel much.
0:26:53 > 0:26:57And I would probably like to have seen more of the world than I have.
0:26:57 > 0:27:01But on the other hand, I understand what Philip Larkin meant when he said,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04"I wouldn't mind going to China, if I could come back the same afternoon."
0:27:04 > 0:27:09- In theory, I would like to do it, but probably...- Something you said.
0:27:09 > 0:27:17When you weren't very well last year, and when you made the comment about it being a bore,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21illness being a bore, do you find that, since then,
0:27:21 > 0:27:25since your recovery, that you have changed what you do?
0:27:25 > 0:27:30Do you have this urgent need to do something?
0:27:30 > 0:27:35No. It speeded up writing Untold Stories.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Other than that I don't think it's made much difference.
0:27:38 > 0:27:44It ought to do, in the conventional way of thinking about life-threatening illness.
0:27:44 > 0:27:49There was a point when you said you thought the book would be published posthumously.
0:27:49 > 0:27:51Yes. I did certainly think so.
0:27:51 > 0:27:57But that made it easier to write in the sense that it loosened me up to write it.
0:27:57 > 0:28:02But...I didn't want it to be published posthumously.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07I'm happy to have been around when it came out.
0:28:09 > 0:28:14If I ate too much food like this, it would be posthumous, really.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18It isn't exactly healthy fare.
0:28:18 > 0:28:26- Alan Bennett, thank you very, very much for being a guest on A Taste Of My Life.- I've enjoyed it.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28I have eaten far too much.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd.