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Bennett, Alan

From Chambers Biographical Dictionary
1934- ♦ English dramatist, actor and director Born in Leeds, he was educated at Leeds Modern School and Oxford, where he studied Modern History. He came to prominence as a writer and performer in Beyond the Fringe , a revue performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1960, and wrote a television series, On The Margin (1966), before his first stage play, Forty Years On (1968). He is essentially a humanist, noted for his wry, self-deprecating humour, which combines a comic-tragic view of life, and later plays include Getting On (1971, about a Labour MP), Habeas Corpus (1973), The Old Country (1977), the double bill Single Spies (1988) and The Madness of George III (1991). The latter was rewritten as a screenplay entitled The Madness of King George (1995), which became an award-winning film starring Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren . He has also written much for television, including An Englishman Abroad (1983), The Insurance Man (1986), and a series of six monologues, Talking Heads (1988). He…
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Full text Article Bennett, Alan

From Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature
Continuing an influential tradition of mild, witty social SATIRE begun in the collaboration with Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore, and Peter Cook, Beyond the Fringe (perf. 1960; pub. 1963, rev. ed., 1987), Bennett’s career as a dramatist of skillful social commentary has continued into the new century. …
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Full text Article Bennett, Alan

From Philip's Encyclopedia
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Full text Article Bennett, Alan (1934– )

From The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance
English playwright, actor, and director. He co-wrote and performed in Beyond the Fringe (1960), a *revue that also featured Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Jonathan *Miller . Its innovative *satire on English life, institutions, and rhetoric established the concerns and style of Bennett's subsequent…
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English writer. He came to prominence as an actor and writer in Beyond the Fringe (1960), and went on to write wry, mordant plays and monologues for stage and screen. He adapted his play The Madness of George III (1991) as an Oscar-winning film in 1995. His play The History Boys (2005) also won many…
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Full text Article Alan Bennett (1934– )

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
And it was for one of these smoking-concerts that I wrote a cod Anglican sermon, something I found no problem doing as I'd sat through so many in my youth. It took me half an hour to put together, and, since it later figured in (indeed earned me my place in) Beyond the Fringe , it was undoubtedly…
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Full text Article Alan Bennett 1934– 

From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
English dramatist and actor Every family has a secret, and the secret is that it's not like other families. Dinner at Noon (BBC television, 1988) I have never understood this liking for war. It panders to instincts already catered for within the scope of any respectable domestic establishment. Forty…
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Full text Article SOCIALISM

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Why is it always the intelligent people who are socialists? BENNETT, Alan Forty Years On (1969). The language of priorities is the religion of Socialism. [Attr.] There is nothing in Socialism that a little age or a little money will not cure. [Attr.] As with the Christian religion, the worst…
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Full text Article DOGS

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men. BEERBOHM, Sir Max Zuleika Dobson (1911). It’s the one species I wouldn’t mind seeing vanish from the face of the earth. I wish they were like the white rhino – six of them left in the…
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Full text Article ANARCHY

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
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Full text Article WRITERS

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
No poet or novelist wishes he were the only one who ever lived, but most of them wish they were the only one alive, and quite a number fondly believe their wish has been granted. AUDEN, W. H. The Dyer’s Hand (1963). I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and…
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