talking Heads.

"Talking Heads" is a series of monologs written by Alan Bennet. They are a deep profound set of very human stories spoken by a group of some of the best actresses of that generation. Patricia  Routledge , Penelope Wilton, Julie Walters, Maggie Smith Thora Heard and of course the writer Alan Bennet. Steam radio at its best, the pathos created by Bennet was that of an incisive craftsman who's eye for the human being and the often tragic story behind the charade was made more real for me because many of the characters were from the north, or at least his turn of phrase made them so.

Bennet is one of those quietly spoken giants of English theatre. Not for his thespian oratory but for his ability to write and craft a character everyone knows from their own experience and to weave a story which is so believable that one can find ones self crying through the sheer touching human  sadness of the story. 

His series of audio books are a treasure. 

The first written and performed by Patricia Routledge on the BBC in 1982, "A women of no importance" portrays the bereft nature of loosing the routine of a job, a job which in her mind gave her the status she so desperately needed.

"A chip in the sugar" tells of the middle aged, rather melancholy son Graham, (a mothers boy), who's mother takes a fancy to a man and his battle with the displacement in her affections. 

Read by Bennet himself its a sad but memorable portrayal of the frail fabric we sometimes build around us only to see it taken away by forces we do not understand.

Thora Hird in "A cream cracker under the settee" and "Waiting for the telegram" portrays the loneliness of a life unfulfilled. She brings tears to your eye as she describes the tug of her Victorian upbringing when she 'shy's away' from the moment of making love with the love of her life a soldier, he never to return from the battlefield, and she never again to experience falling in love.  A moments lost indulgence remains to haunt her into her old age.

From the 'curtain twitcher to the old lady who falls in her home and reflects that no one knows she is there or more importantly, cares !!! His work although written 30years ago is of our time and depicts the loneliness that can come from having many around but who are in such a hurry they are blind to see the need !!!

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