The Latest Breaking News from Alan Bennett

From afternoon sherry to sex with the handyman in the lawnmower shed, Alan Bennett takes a wry look at lockdown life in a care home

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.