We've been watching Alan Bennett's Talking Heads again recently. I'd forgotten how good they are, but also how irritating some of the words and phrases are. It doesn't matter which walk of life people come from, whether you're uberposh Stephanie Cole or ordinary Patricia Routledge or downmarket Julie Walters, you are all basically the same, adding way too much detail into each sentence, just so we know you're an Alan Bennett creation and thereby working out your backstory with the things you're leaving out as well as putting in. Not that it's not amusing, because it is.
A lot of characters talk of 'tablets'. I never, ever use this word. Pills is much more me. 'Have you taken your tablets, Graham?' asks Mam, or 'Let's find you a tablet, Margaret' says Stephanie Cole. There are a lot of tablets knocking about here.
I'd forgotten just how dark these all are. I watched them on their original transmission about 20 years ago, and just found them funny. But actually they're tragic and the loneliness is bitingly brutal. I think my favourite is the one with Alan himself, A Chip In The Sugar. It's sets the tone nicely.
Alan Bennett lives just down the road from where I work, and I've stopped him before to say how much I like his work. He said I was 'bold'. I might go and ask for a tablet.
