The Lady in the Van and Other Stories: Screenplay - Softcover

Bennett, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250089727 ISBN 13: 9781250089724

Publisher: Picador USA, 2015

Synopsis

Now a major motion picture starring Maggie Smith, Alan Bennett's famous and heartwarming story "The Lady in the Van," and more of Bennett's classic short-form work

Alan Bennett has long been one of the world's most revered humorists. From his acclaimed story collection Smut to his hilarious and sharply observed The Uncommon Reader, Bennett has consistently remained one of literature's most acute observers of Britain and life's many absurdities.

In this new collection, drawn from his wide-ranging career, you'll read some of Bennett's finest work, including the title story, the basis for a new feature film starring Maggie Smith. The book also includes the rollicking comic masterpiece "The Laying on of Hands" and the bittersweet "Father! Father! Burning Bright," Bennett's classic tale of the tense relationship between a man and his dying father.

About this title

About the Author

Alan Bennett has been one of England's leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His work includes the Talking Heads television series, and the stage plays Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, and The Madness of King George III. His play, The History Boys (now a major motion picture), won six Tony Awards, including best play, in 2006. In the same year his memoir, Untold Stories, was a number-one bestseller in the United Kingdom.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Lady in the Van

And Other Stories

By Alan Bennett

Picador

Copyright © 2015 Forelake Ltd
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-08972-4

Contents

Title Page, 
Copyright Notice, 
Preface, 
Film Diary, 
The Lady in the Van, 
The Laying On of Hands, 
Father! Father! Burning Bright, 
About the Author, 
Also by Alan Bennett, 
Copyright, 

CHAPTER 1

The Lady in the Van

Good nature, or what is often considered as such, is the most selfish of all virtues: it is nine times out of ten mere indolence of disposition.

– William Hazlitt, 'On the Knowledge of Character' (1822)

'I ran into a snake this afternoon,' Miss Shepherd said. 'It was coming up Parkway. It was a long, grey snake — a boa constrictor possibly. It looked poisonous. It was keeping close to the wall and seemed to know its way. I've a feeling it may have been heading for the van.' I was relieved that on this occasion she didn't demand that I ring the police, as she regularly did if anything out of the ordinary occurred. Perhaps this was too out of the ordinary (though it turned out the pet shop in Parkway had been broken into the previous night, so she may have seen a snake). She brought her mug over and I made her a drink, which she took back to the van. 'I thought I'd better tell you,' she said, 'just to be on the safe side. I've had some close shaves with snakes.'

This encounter with the putative boa constrictor was in the summer of 1971, when Miss Shepherd and her van had for some months been at a permanent halt opposite my house in Camden Town. I had first come across her a few years previously, stood by her van, stalled as usual, near the convent at the top of the street. The convent (which was to have a subsequent career as the Japanese School) was a gaunt reformatory-like building that housed a dwindling garrison of aged nuns and was notable for a striking crucifix attached to the wall overlooking the traffic lights. There was something about the position of Christ, pressing himself against the grim pebbledash beneath the barred windows of the convent, that called up visions of the Stalag and the searchlight and which had caused us to dub him 'The Christ of Colditz'. Miss Shepherd, not looking un-crucified herself, was standing by her vehicle in an attitude with which I was to become very familiar, left arm extended with the palm flat against the side of the van indicating ownership, the right arm summoning anyone who was fool enough to take notice of her, on this occasion me. Nearly six foot, she was a commanding figure, and would have been more so had she not been kitted out in greasy raincoat, orange skirt, Ben Hogan golfing-cap and carpet slippers. She would be going on sixty at this time.

She must have prevailed on me to push the van as far as Albany Street, though I recall nothing of the exchange. What I do remember was being overtaken by two policemen in a panda car as I trundled the van across Gloucester Bridge; I thought that, as the van was certainly holding up the traffic, they might have lent a hand. They were wiser than I knew. The other feature of this first run-in with Miss Shepherd was her driving technique. Scarcely had I put my shoulder to the back of the van, an old Bedford, than a long arm was stretched elegantly out of the driver's window to indicate in textbook fashion that she (or rather I) was moving off. A few yards further on, as we were about to turn into Albany Street, the arm emerged again, twirling elaborately in the air to indicate that we were branching left, the movement done with such boneless grace th

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1250089727
• ISBN 13: 9781250089724
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240