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DARK SECRETS: Alan bennett - The Real Truth

Britain’s complicity with Israel in Lebanon and the West Bank

Letters: Alexandra Lucas asks what has to happen for our government to act, rather than simply condemn Benjamin Netanyahu, while John Deards notes Alan Bennett’s prescience on Donald Trump

The Guardian - UK

Desmond Barrit obituary

Character actor of energetic comic brilliance, notably as Falstaff at the RSC and in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys

The Guardian - UK

A gleaming tribute to Mary Rand’s gold

Brief letters: Long-jump marker | Alan Bennett’s call-up | Light news | Lashings | Socialist sunshine

The Guardian - UK

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Enough Said by Alan Bennett review – a man for all seasons

Nostalgia, shame and gossip from Alan Bennett in the fourth instalment of his diaries

The Guardian - UK

Tales of the Suburbs by John Grindrod review – queer goings on behind the curtains

From ‘gaybours’ to treasure hunts in Tunbridge Wells, a tragicomic history of LGBTQ life outside the big city

The Guardian - UK

‘We thought Midnight Cowboy might end everybody’s career’: the diverse, disruptive, Oscar-winning cinema of John Schlesinger

In the 60s and 70s, he pioneered kitchen-sink drama and made bisexuality mainstream. So why did the director end up making Tory ads? Those who knew him best reveal all

The Guardian - UK

‘We are no longer apologising’: Éanna Hardwicke on Ireland’s cultural confidence and what it’s like to play Roy Keane

Currently on stage in a play that provoked riots, the rising Irish actor is also stepping into Keane’s boots to replay a notorious footballing feud. But, he says, his country feels more empowered than ever before

The Guardian - UK

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Books to look out for in 2026 – nonfiction

Memoirs from Liza Minnelli and Lena Dunham, essays by David Sedaris and Alan Bennett’s diaries are among the highlights of the year ahead

The Guardian - UK

All children should have access to arts education

Letters: Readers respond to an article by Martin Kettle about the impact of educational inequality on Britain’s cultural sector

The Guardian - UK

The Standard Theatre Awards Shortlist 2025 revealed

Cate Blanchett, Tom Hiddleston and Rachel Zegler are shortlisted as the Standard’s historic celebration of the stage returns

Evening Standard

The Choral: this moving first world war film reveals the power of music to transcend despair

Set in the Oxfordshire village of Ramsden in 1916, The Choral inhabits a world where the war is distant – yet its shadow lies over every street. Many of the young men are gone to the front, their names echoing through the church and village hall. Those left behind hover…

The Conversation

From fiasco to feted: the story of the Dream of Gerontius, the revolutionary music of The Choral

The Choral depicts an amateur choral society in wartime Yorkshire taking on Elgar’s trailblazing and controversial work. But how much does Alan Bennett’s fiction reflect actual fact?

The Guardian - UK

The Choral review – Ralph Fiennes leads the choir in impressively unsentimental Alan Bennett fable

Genteel manners of first world war story about repressed passion delivered with surprising sexual candour

The Guardian - UK

‘I’ve played a lot of sneery bastards’: Roger Allam on bad singing, big paydays and Elgar’s level of ‘gitacity’

He launched a thousand memes as the beleaguered Tory MP in The Thick of It, and starred in the original production of Les Misérables. Now the actor is making not-so-sweet music in the Alan Bennett-scripted film The Choral. But there are plenty of things he draws the line at …

The Guardian - UK

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Evening Standard

‘National treasure’ Prunella Scales remembered as a ‘gifted human being’

The actress has died at the age of 93.

The Guardian - UK

Prunella Scales was a queen of comedy with a passion for classical theatre

The actor best known as TV’s Sybil Fawlty dazzled over five decades on stage, in roles from from Shakespeare to Alan Bennett

Evening Standard

Prunella Scales will forever be known as the long-suffering wife of Basil Fawlty

Although she was regularly cast in comic roles, her abilities ranged far more widely than that – she even appeared in opera.

The Conversation

Why the BBC’s Shipping Forecast still entrances people after 100 years

Like afternoon tea, red pillar boxes and bracing walks on crisp autumn days, there is something reassuringly British about the Shipping Forecast, broadcast twice a day on Radio 4, and three times at weekends.

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The Guardian - UK

From Hyacinth Bucket to Alan Bennett’s muse: Patricia Routledge’s utterly unique TV career

She wowed in Coronation Street, inspired Victoria Wood and in Keeping Up Appearances transformed a grotesque comic creation into a character we’ll never forget. Routledge was a talent like no other

The Guardian - UK

Dame Patricia Routledge obituary

Formidable and versatile actor best known for her comic turn as the snobbish Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances

The Guardian - US

The Choral review – Ralph Fiennes makes pleasant music in low-volume drama

The actor is a reliably committed presence in this gentle Alan Bennett-scripted first world war tale which might have worked better on stage

The Guardian - UK

Spinal Tap II, Julia Roberts and Paul Thomas Anderson: the best films of autumn 2025

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

Evening Standard

Clive at Arcola Theatre review: it's hard to care while watching this pointless production

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

The Independent UK

Missing pages of Moors murderer Ian Brady’s autobiography ‘could hold details of burial site’

More than 200 pages of Ian Brady’s autobiography, Black Light, is missing from the discovered manuscript

BANG Premier

'Frankly, I think those things are rather silly...' Monty Python legend John Cleese not interested in a knighthood

Monty Python star John Cleese has no interested in ever receiving a knighthood from King Charles because he thinks the British honours system is pointless.

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