I hate AB's works &c.

[Guest]

This windy, fat-arsed Yorkshireman from North London is given far too much attention.

His plays are miserable, dreary, provincial affairs....that he is massively successful (albeit only with people as miserable, dreary and provincial as he is) must be an indictment of current British tastes.

I am sick to death of his 'stock props'.....a sort of benighted nostalgia for the Attlee government, a facile willingness to blame estate agents and ad-men for all our present ills (that's really original, isn't it?), a Betjemenesque distaste for the 'commodification of Englishness'....oh, and stock characters who turn out to have been closeted homosexuals.

Bennett's plays are junk; his persona is nauseous; there is not a single positive thing that can said about either him or his work. If he went under a bus tomorrow, I'd be sad for those close to him but rather relieved that there'd be no more to come from this particular 'source'.


[Ed: The thread title has been amended to reflect the views of several members. The content remains to allow people to comment as they see fit. ff]

[Roslynmuse]

I used to enjoy it when he shared a macaroon with Dame Thora on Dead Ringers.

Particularly the one when the truth of the Queen Mother's fishbone-in-the-throat episode came out - she and Dame T had actually been having a back alley fist-fight and the Queen Mum had been locked in an incapacitating half-Nelson.

Sorry, OT...

[MrGongGong]

Do you like anything ?

[amateur51]

This windy, fat-arsed Yorkshireman from North London is given far too much attention.

His plays are miserable, dreary, provincial affairs....that he is massively successful (albeit only with people as miserable, dreary and provincial as he is) must be an indictment of current British tastes.

I am sick to death of his 'stock props'.....a sort of benighted nostalgia for the Attlee government, a facile willingness to blame estate agents and ad-men for all our present ills (that's really original, isn't it?), a Betjemenesque distaste for the 'commodification of Englishness'....oh, and stock characters who turn out to have been closeted homosexuals.

Bennett's plays are junk; his persona is nauseous; there is not a single positive thing that can said about either him or his work. If he went under a bus tomorrow, I'd be sad for those close to him but rather relieved that there'd be no more to come from this particular 'source'.

Ah Mandy, ever the contrarian.

Sadly you're out-of touch re more to come - he's left all his papers to the Bodleian Library so there'll be plenty more to come for decades yet

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/news/2008_oct_24

I think some of his work - A Question of Attribution, History Boys, An Englishman Abroad, Talking Heads - are very entertaining and thought-provoking

[salymap]

Ah Mandy, ever the contrarian.

Sadly you're out-of touch re more to come - he's left all his papers to the Bodleian Library so there'll be plenty more to come for decades yet

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/news/2008_oct_24

I think some of his work - A Question of Attribution, History Boys, An Englishman Abroad, Talking Heads - are very entertaining and thought-provoking

I like alotof his work too, very funny and as ams says thought provoking.

[french frank]

The content of the OP has been queried by a member. I take the same view as other respondents but leave it to them to pass their verdict on it. I do deprecate the expressed opinion (whether intended as black humour or not) that anyone going 'under a bus' would be in any way welcome.

Most of the other comments in the OP seem of low critical value.

[Flosshilde]

Most of the other comments in the OP seem of low critical value.

Does 'OP' stand for 'original post' or 'original poster'?

Just an innocent enquiry

[Anna]

I have deleted my post.

I would like to say: I love Mandy, his plays are delicious, he does not have a fat arse, he is wonderfully world-weary cynical, 100% not gay and I would hate that he fell under a bus, anytime soon.

Sorry Mandy but you do ask for it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This windy, fat-arsed Yorkshireman from North London is given far too much attention.

His plays are miserable, dreary, provincial affairs....that he is massively successful (albeit only with people as miserable, dreary and provincial as he is) must be an indictment of current British tastes.

I am sick to death of his 'stock props'.....a sort of benighted nostalgia for the Attlee government, a facile willingness to blame estate agents and ad-men for all our present ills (that's really original, isn't it?), a Betjemenesque distaste for the 'commodification of Englishness'....oh, and stock characters who turn out to have been closeted homosexuals.

Bennett's plays are junk; his persona is nauseous; there is not a single positive thing that can said about either him or his work. If he went under a bus tomorrow, I'd be sad for those close to him but rather relieved that there'd be no more to come from this particular 'source'.

Has it ever occured to you, Mandy, that he might think that you're a bit of an ass, too?

[Serial_Apologist]

100% not gay

Hmmm not sure about that... and why should it doesn't matter one way or the other (to coin a pun)?.

The Sermon - one of Alan Bennnett's contributions to Beyond The fringe, remains one of the funniest.....

[Serial_Apologist]

I have deleted my post.

I would like to say: I love Mandy, his plays are delicious, he does not have a fat arse, he is wonderfully world-weary cynical, 100% not gay and I would hate that he fell under a bus, anytime soon.

Sorry Mandy but you do ask for it.

As a baby he was probably forcefed mandrake

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

..is Mandryka an hairy or a smooth man ..........

[Flosshilde]

Straus's Mandryka strikes me as being rather creepy.

[Richard Tarleton]

It's possible that, like Simon Jenkins, Mandryka has been driven beyond endurance by AB's latest oeuvre - a singularly ill-informed tilt at the National Trust in his play "People". Judging by the article and review in today's Sunday Times it is a lazy swipe at the NT of about 50 years ago, based on a number of false premises, with a character (played by Nicholas le Prevost) who would not have been out of place in the NT of the 1930s. But Simon Jenkins did express himself in more measured tones regarding AB's immediate future .

I liked A Question of Attribution and An Englishman Abroad, but this sounds as if it represents a serious falling off of AB's standards. Frances de la Tour - first saw her in Peter Brook's legendary A Midsummer Night's Dream in the late 1960s, playing Hermia. That was a long time before Miss jones.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I really don't think the OP deserves any response in this instance.