This week has been an Alan Bennett week. I’m not actually that much of a fan, but I got this admittedly beautiful boxset of his play texts for my birthday, so I decided to give them a second try. I was surprised that I enjoyed several of the books, especially Habeas Corpus and The Madness of King George III. I think overall my previous opinion of him came more from the legions of British playwrights who have tried to mimic his style for decades, and have failed; yet have taken over the UK theatre scene recently (as if Sarah Kane and the rest of the 1990s never happened).
I am also often told that I need to improve the depth of my characters in my plays ( at the moment I am generally neither character or plot focused but atmosphere focused), and I thought reading a highly character-focused playwright like Bennett would help. But after reading much of his work, I learnt he isn’t all that character focused after all. Instead his scripts rely on detailed conceits and comedy as a structure. However he taught me a lot that I will use in my future writing.
Just while I remember I missed last week’s post due to illness, though I did manage to read Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation a history of madness from 1500-1800. It is a truly fascinating book- taking the story of madness from ships of fools up to the first asylums. It looked at how oppression of the mad has led to only more madness than ever. I linked in quite well with reading The Madness of King George III this week.