Alan Bennett Talking Heads In Bennett's monologues the main character faces an important decision which will affect the course of their lives. I will go on and explain in this essay, the play writer's use of literary techniques - including setting, theme and characterisation- which may make the decision seem correct or not. Talking Heads was originally produced for BBC television but has recently been used as a collection of short stories. Each of the characters portrayed, is played by an
Studying Two Alan Bennett Monologues Introduction A monologue is a play with a single performer. The word monologue is of Greek origin and comes from mono-logos. Mono means 'word of one person' and logos means 'voice' hence monologue, 'one voice'. Alan Bennett's work is impressive and his understanding of characterization is second to none. He has an ability to capture the life- styles and backgrounds of the characters he creates. The language of each character brings forward clichés
Alan Bennett presents his characters in Talking Heads by writing the plays in the form of monologue. By employing this technique he has managed to create a rich and detailed World in which his stories unfold but, he only allows us to see it through the eyes of a single narrator. When reading a play that is presented in this manner it is possible to lose sight of the fact that you are only getting one person’s version of events and you may start to believe that you are having conversations reported
To What Extent Do You Believe that The History Boys and Love's Labour's Lost are Satires on Attitudes to Scholarship? In The History Boys and Love's Labour's Lost, Shakespeare and Alan Bennett both satirise scholarship to various degrees. Love’s Labour’s Lost overall is more satirical; however, there is also an obvious element of satire in The History Boys. In Love's Labour's Lost, Shakespeare heavily satirises education and the pompous nature of some of those who consider themselves scholarly
A Sense of Tragedy and Humour in alan Bennett's Talking Heads Monologues Alan Bennett uses a variety of techniques to convey a sense of both tragedy and humour in his 'Talking Heads' monologues. I will be looking specifically at 'Bed Among The Lentils' and 'Cream Cracker Under The Settee.' Alan Bennett achieves both of these effects by use of several clever choices regarding the casting as well as sound and visual effects. There are two very different types of humour in 'Bed Among The
Terrible Loneliness Conveyed In Alan Bennett’s A Lady Of Letters? Miss Irene Ruddock is an ordinary middle-aged woman who lives on her own. She was close to her mother who had recently passed away. Miss Ruddock has no real friends and finds it difficult to fill her time so she is often sitting in her chair, looking out of her window and noting what is going on in other people’s lives. She has no social life and she only leaves the house when she has to. Alan Bennett shows Miss Ruddock’s loneliness
Born in Yorkshire in 1934, Alan Bennett. Born in Yorkshire in 1934, Alan Bennett has been writing, performing and directing since his first theatrical encounters as a student at Oxford in the early 1960's. He first gained success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and later, in collaboration with Dudley Moore, Peter Cooke and Jonathan Miller, enjoyed considerable acclaim with the original Beyond the Fringe. (www.museum.tv. Accessed 26/01/03) Alan Bennett is the archetypal Northerner,
‘The History Boys’ can only be ‘merely’ a farce to a certain extent; the use of shocking events juxtaposed with the facetious tone used to create the farcical elements Bennett utilises throughout the play, indicates a underlying polemic message that holds several different implications to the reader. Bennett uses farcical elements, although not exclusively, in the play. The comedic device of stock characters is exploited to the farcical subgenre, with them being created to provide the material
In his drama ‘The History Boys’, Alan Bennett utilises comedic factors to play incongruent to the serious matters of the play. The playwright (Alan Bennett) specifically creates comedic scenes and improbable moments in the classroom to challenge and, ultimately influence the student’s perception and viewpoint of serious matters. Michael Billington regarded the play as a ‘deep-wrought and immensely funny play about the value and meaning of education’1 and the character of Hector orchestrates this
Alan Bennett's A Cream Cracker Under the Settee How does Alan Bennett reveal Doris’ character, life and attitude in the dramatic monologue “a cream cracker under the settee”? Many of Bennett's characters are unfortunate and downtrodden, as in the Talking Heads series of monologues that was first performed at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1992, and then transferred to television. This was a sextet of poignantly comic pieces, each of which portrayed several stages in the character's decline