The Latest Breaking News from Alan Bennett

An original Alan Bennett screenplay, a classy star turn for George Clooney and a Bruce Springsteen biopic are all on their way to the big screen

2/5 The set design is the only saving grace in Michael Wynne’s play about a clean-freak loser and his cactus

In his 10th decade The History Boys writer is as prolific as ever with a war film in the works and a new sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of Donald Trump

I’ve been thinking about the word “history” and what it really means to think about the past. People often refer to history as something that they “failed in school”. But really, history is, as Alan Bennett put it so beautifully in his 2004 play The History Boys, “just one f***ing…

It is a testament to the power of the late British actress Dame Maggie Smith that other eminent actors – though only male ones, as far as I can see – accused her of upstaging them.

A distinguished, double Oscar-winning actor whose roles ranged from Shakespeare to Harry Potter

The real-life dame and on-screen dowager countess, who has died aged 89, earned fame in her 70s and 80s for blockbuster roles. But her early work at the National Theatre marked her out as a talent for the ages

Giant of stage and screen was one of Britain’s most successul stars

In a career that began in the 1950s, her roles ranged from Desdemona to Miss Jean Brodie, Virginia Woolf and Minerva McGonagall