Alan Bennett, Talking Heads

I picked up this book because I enjoyed Alan Bennett’s novella, The Uncommon Reader, in which Queen Elizabeth becomes hooked on reading. Talking Heads is an earlier work, a set of six monologues written for television and portrayed by such excellent character actors as Maggie Smith and Patricia Routledge.

You have met these people: the lady who writes letters to the newspapers, the almost-actress who denies how almost her career is, the mama’s boy who needs to keep mama in need of him. The tone is satirical but kind, mostly. You will enjoy them, laugh at them and also feel a lot of sympathy for them. As Muriel says  in Soldiering On, after she loses her money:

I wouldn’t want you think this is a tragic story.

I’m not a tragic woman.

I’m not that type.

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