What do you think?
Rate this book
Alan Bennett: Stories: Read by Alan Bennett
A unique collection of eight Alan Bennett stories read by the author. The titles are Uncle Clarence ; The Lady in the Van ; The Clothes They Stood Up In ; Father! Father! Burning Bright ; Hymn ; The Laying On of Hands ; The Uncommon Reader ; and The Shielding of Mrs Forbes . These readings were first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1986 and 2011. approximately 13 hours.
1 pages, Audio CD
First published September 1, 2016
11 people are currently reading
39 people want to read
About the author
Alan Bennett
272 books1,110 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Alan Bennett is an English author and Tony Award-winning playwright. Bennett's first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and broadcasting, and many appearances as an actor. Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a slight Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. His readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories are also widely enjoyed.
Alan Bennett is an English author and Tony Award-winning playwright. Bennett's first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and broadcasting, and many appearances as an actor. Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a slight Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. His readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories are also widely enjoyed.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 1, 2023
Very enjoyable. I do like listening to Alan Bennett reading his own stories; all the wit, humour and also disappointment is put across so well with that rather flat, but perfectly suitable Yorkshire accent.
September 17, 2016
Nice short stories read by the man himself.
June 13, 2021
I have read the print versions of several of the stories included in this collection, but that experience doesn’t come close to hearing them read by Alan Bennett.
November 1, 2016
Loved it. This is Alan Bennett at his best in my opinion. Witty, straight talking. Observational humour better than any TV Soap Opera.
The Lady In The Van was at times sad, affectionate, touching and the rest was roaring out loud funny. One word summary; Fantastic!
The Lady In The Van was at times sad, affectionate, touching and the rest was roaring out loud funny. One word summary; Fantastic!
May 24, 2024
Sex, death and tales of English eccentricity are common threads in this collection of stories by British author, playwright, screenwriter and actor Alan Bennett.
Bennett, now 90, has had an extraordinary career, first coming to the public eye in the early 1960s as part of the Beyond the Fringe comedy troupe that also included Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathon Miller.
I became aware of him in his BBC television monologues which aired when I was a boy. While widely seen as works of deadpan comic genius, most of these went over my head and I had always seen him as an acquired taste.
But on listening today to this collection of some of his best known works (narrated by the author himself in his broad Yorkshire dipthongs) I was struck by his dry, yet affectionate, observations of human nature.
Many of these stories centre on quintessential sexually repressed and stitched-up English characters breaking out in one way or another and ‘expressing’ themselves in both pathetically comic and deeply human fashion.
I was familiar, via a television production, of one of the longer stories ‘The Laying On of Hands’ (a hilarious novella about a memorial service for a recently departed sex worker attended by a virtual who’s-of of UK celebrity and governing circles, each of whom had been ‘touched’ by the deceased and fears they may have contracted AIDS.)
And the lead story (‘The Lady in the Van’) I knew from the movie treatment released a few years ago with Dame Maggie Smith in the title role.
But the standout piece for me was ‘The Clothes They Stood Up In’, about a stuck-in-a-rut late middle-aged London solicitor and his wife, whose home is stripped bare by burglars while they are out at the opera.
The mysterious burglary turns their lives upside down in more ways than one, exciting the imagination of the wife as she realises how little of life she has actually seen due to being weighed down for decades by useless possessions.
In the final story, ‘The Shielding of Mrs Forbes’, Bennett explores similar themes as an in-the-closet glamour boy who disappointed his controlling mother by marrying a plain girl, and then going to extreme lengths to stop her finding out about his double life. This story appears to draw heavily on Bennett’s own experiences as a bisexual man.
Full of mordant humour and acute observations about repressed English middle class culture, these stories had me laughing out loud throughout.
Bennett, now 90, has had an extraordinary career, first coming to the public eye in the early 1960s as part of the Beyond the Fringe comedy troupe that also included Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathon Miller.
I became aware of him in his BBC television monologues which aired when I was a boy. While widely seen as works of deadpan comic genius, most of these went over my head and I had always seen him as an acquired taste.
But on listening today to this collection of some of his best known works (narrated by the author himself in his broad Yorkshire dipthongs) I was struck by his dry, yet affectionate, observations of human nature.
Many of these stories centre on quintessential sexually repressed and stitched-up English characters breaking out in one way or another and ‘expressing’ themselves in both pathetically comic and deeply human fashion.
I was familiar, via a television production, of one of the longer stories ‘The Laying On of Hands’ (a hilarious novella about a memorial service for a recently departed sex worker attended by a virtual who’s-of of UK celebrity and governing circles, each of whom had been ‘touched’ by the deceased and fears they may have contracted AIDS.)
And the lead story (‘The Lady in the Van’) I knew from the movie treatment released a few years ago with Dame Maggie Smith in the title role.
But the standout piece for me was ‘The Clothes They Stood Up In’, about a stuck-in-a-rut late middle-aged London solicitor and his wife, whose home is stripped bare by burglars while they are out at the opera.
The mysterious burglary turns their lives upside down in more ways than one, exciting the imagination of the wife as she realises how little of life she has actually seen due to being weighed down for decades by useless possessions.
In the final story, ‘The Shielding of Mrs Forbes’, Bennett explores similar themes as an in-the-closet glamour boy who disappointed his controlling mother by marrying a plain girl, and then going to extreme lengths to stop her finding out about his double life. This story appears to draw heavily on Bennett’s own experiences as a bisexual man.
Full of mordant humour and acute observations about repressed English middle class culture, these stories had me laughing out loud throughout.
November 13, 2022
Ecclectic but engaging. At times Bennett is so dry in his wit that you can't tell if he's making a satirical comment, trying to be funny, or really is just a misanthrope. But overall his collection of stories (and a couple memoirs) largely seem focused on taking a bemused (and at times almost too detached) view of the hypocrises and foibles of people trying to keep up appearances in modern British society.
By far the best piece in the work (and one that probably reads differently in the wake of her death) is also the most overtly humorous piece, which imagines what would happen were Queen Elizabeth II accidentally to discover a mobile library on her palace grounds for her workers and start reading for pleasure. Her discovery that reading creates a sense of empathy for those around her and gives her ambition to shirk the pointless duties and confines of the crown is both a love letter to the point of reading and also an oddly sympathetic view of the hardships endured by being a monarch.
By far the best piece in the work (and one that probably reads differently in the wake of her death) is also the most overtly humorous piece, which imagines what would happen were Queen Elizabeth II accidentally to discover a mobile library on her palace grounds for her workers and start reading for pleasure. Her discovery that reading creates a sense of empathy for those around her and gives her ambition to shirk the pointless duties and confines of the crown is both a love letter to the point of reading and also an oddly sympathetic view of the hardships endured by being a monarch.
December 16, 2025
Outstanding collection of stories, enhanced by author narration. One of the shorter pieces regarding an uncle who died young in WWI being "present" to the surviving family for decades probably had the strongest effect on me. Burglary tale started off slow, unlikeable character, but built to a great conclusion. I hadn't experienced Bennett's stories before, knowing him from the Talking Heads video series, but looking forward to listening to more of his fiction.
April 19, 2023
Eight stories by Alan Bennett. The two I most enjoyed were The Lady in the Van and The Uncommon Reader, which I had heard a lot about but couldn't find outside of this collection. The only one I didn't like was Hymn. I couldn't connect with the music or the performance. I think Bennett is in a class by himself when it comes to writing about sex. He is so funny!
April 28, 2021
Top Bennett! I really enjoyed these, and listened to the whole 10 or 11 hours in a couple of days. I particularly like the way the author’s own voice becomes a bit more apparent at the end of a story sometimes, to comment on the story or the characters.
July 29, 2021
Undoubtedly a good writer and funny. Perhaps I read this at the wrong time. Mostly I found it so depressing but this may be another example of being more about me than I am totally comfortable to admit to. Recommended to the normal crew cautiously. Be in A very very good mood
March 21, 2023
Audio- read by Alan Bennett. Lots of humor and insight into humanity. The Uncommon Reader had been on my to-read list since reading Will Schwalbe’s “The End of Your Life Bookclub”. Very glad to have heard it read by the author.
July 13, 2024
One thing better than an Alan Bennett story is an Alan Bennett story read by Alan Bennett. My favourite is the Uncommon Reader closely followed by the Clothes They Stood Up In but they’re all worthwhile.
June 3, 2017
Brilliant stories. Brilliantly read by the author as an Audible audio book. Entertaining, engaging, witty. Some of the stories have quite a savage bite!
September 19, 2020
Listened to this on Audible being read by the author. Very British humour but very funny.
December 20, 2022
I loved these funny, human stories about moments of connection in life.
September 2, 2025
The lady in the van is the best.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews