Alan Bennett: interview

Alan Bennett‘s gentle Yorkshire tones and middle-class appeal too often pigeonhole him. But from his early days in ’Beyond the Fringe‘, through his pioneering television screenplays, to his latest work, ’The History Boys‘ – now a new film – a sly subversiveness has always permeated his work. Famously wary of journalists, the Camden resident grants Time Out a rare and candid interview to discuss the eroticism of education, the Queen‘s sense of humour and why he loves ’Footballers‘ Wives‘.

You’ve written a lot about your life and career, both indirectly in your drama and directly in your memoirs. But you’ve not written much about ‘Beyond the Fringe’.
No, I haven’t written about it. That’s very true.

You mention that period in some diary entries, and you suggest that you always felt slightly uncomfortable.
I think Dudley did as well. When he talked about it on chat shows, he talked about it in a slightly resentful way, seeing it as a time when he was very much kept down. Then it was really Jonathan who was very much the darling of the press in the sense that he gives very good interview does Jonathan. He talks in ready-made quotes and he’s very articulate and very funny.

I think Dudley felt – and I certainly felt – that we were slightly the second-class passengers in it. And I think we probably were. I mean Peter was a genius, and he could extemporise reams of wonderful stuff. We were all competitive, so in order to keep up I had to do a lot of homework. Whereas Peter never did. It came off the top of his head.

It was quite a difficult relationship. I always used to think later on, when we got to know the ‘Python’ people, how much easier they were with each other, and how better a time they seemed to have. Cleese was a bit difficult with them, but I think they weren’t as thorny a group as we were. I’ve never written about it as there never seemed much to say, really. There have been things written about it. There was a play about Peter and Dudley, and the thing that Rhys Ifans did. They were good, but they didn’t seem to relate to what it was like. They read back into the start of the careers, all the later stuff.

Peter didn’t drink very much during ‘Beyond the Fringe’, really. He was often pissed, but it wasn’t a handicap. He didn’t put Dudley down or anybody else. For all we were difficult with each other, there was much more sheer fun in it. The biopic stuff that I saw implied that it was torture right from the start and it wasn’t. They used to make each other piss with laughter. That’s when they realised they could work together.

Was it embarrassing to see yourself portrayed in ‘Not Only But Always’, the recent TV drama about Peter Cook?
No, no. I don’t know who played me even. I think Jonathan came off rather worse than I did. I just didn’t say anything – which is about right! There was just a scene in a rehearsal room, if I remember. There was never anything as formal as a rehearsal room; we used to rehearse in people’s front rooms.