Talking Heads
by Alan Bennett
Her Majesty’s
Murray Bramwell
Originally, there were six Talking Heads in Alan Bennett’s splendid set of monologues written for BBC Television and broadcast in 1989. Featuring some of the best actors in the UK – Julie Walters, Thora Hird , Patricia Routledge, Stephanie Cole and Maggie Smith – they were a great success. Several selections were subsequently staged in 1992 directed by Bennett himself. He then took a further production to the Chichester Festival in 1996 and on to the West End.
It is the revival of this production, now touring our major cities, that gives us a rare chance to see two of the more talked-about Heads – Bed Among the Lentils, reprised by Maggie Smith herself, and Soldiering On, performed for television by Stephanie Cole and now presented by distinguished stage performer Margaret Tyzack.
These are portraits of women under siege, character studies which also show character. Alan Bennett writes well about women and his texts are bristling with subtext, undercurrents, ironies and finely triggered wit. His creations are sturdy, indomitable women undefeated even when in prison, or on the game, or, in the case of these two monologues, when apparently under the thumb of men.
Muriel, well-groomed in skirt and cardigan, is describing her late night cooking effort for her husband’s wake. Bearing up after Ralph’s death, she is making adjustments, signing papers and letting son Giles put some of her best paintings and choicest ornaments out of the way in his flat in Sloane Square. Later she confides her liquidity problems and an investment that has gone bung. In the next scene her house is up for auction and well-to-do friends are angling to snap up the sideboard and walnut table. It soon emerges that not only has Giles skinned her financially but her daughter Margaret, languishing in a series of mental hospitals, has been Daddy’s girl in more ways than one.
Margaret Tyzack’s Muriel faces a rapidly deteriorating circumstance with good cheer and, we think, with a distinct lack of scepticism. But in this beautifully modulated piece we see also the extraordinary adaptability of this woman and her acceptance of change. Played with quiet aplomb by Miss Tyzack, Muriel has unexpected dignity and resourcefulness and while we agree that her story of decline is not a tragic one, we are left greatly to ponder why not.
In Bed of Lentils, Susan tells us, right off the bat, that she is glad she is not married to Jesus. Being married to Geoffrey is quite enough. Maggie Smith’s portrait of a clergyman’s wife who is buckling under the task, is both comic and full of pain. Without Muriel’s armour of middle class propriety and dipping further not only into the sherry cupboard but the reserves of communion wine as well, Susan is in retreat from muscular Christianity, altar flower arranging and the remonstrations of Miss Trubsole and Miss Frobisher.
It is on a mercy trip to Leeds for another tipple that she meets Mr Ramesh, the young Indian grocer with whom she discovers the polytheistic charms of tantric love – or as she puts, I found out what all the fuss is about. Her retreat from the affair, retrieval through AA, and return as a rehabilitated trophy for her proselytising husband, makes for a bleak conclusion, underscored by Maggie Smith’s superbly judged comedy and admirable lack of sentiment.
These Talking Heads, smoothly directed by Anthony Page and lightly furnished by designer Simon Higlett, provide showcases for first rate performances but the real star is writer Alan Bennett with his beautifully poised comedy, his sibilant prose, his bone-dry wit and his articulate interest in ladies.
The Adelaide Review, No.248, May, 2004, p.25.