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Beckenham Theatre Company
Present: Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads
Wednesday 20th—Friday 22nd July @ 7.30 pm
Beckenham Methodist Church
Bromley Rd BR3 5JE
Tickets: £10 Box office: 07971 810995
Alan Bennett’s award-winning series of solo pieces is a classic of contemporary drama, universally hailed for its combination of razor-sharp wit and deeply felt humanity. These extraordinary portraits of ordinary people confirm Alan Bennett’s place as one of the most gifted, versatile, and important writers in the English Language.
Soldiering On – Performed by Dot Pullan
Muriel is a strong woman, and always has been – a pillar of the community, a regular charity worker, and a volunteer for Meals on Wheels; and looking after her mentally ill daughter, Margaret, has fortified her resolve – so, after the death of her husband, Muriel is well-prepared to cope with the crisis. However, given her son’s ineptitude (or dishonesty) with money, and the vile secret behind Margaret’s illness, Muriel finds that she needs to adapt in order to ‘soldier on.’
Bed Among The Lentils – Performed by Debbie Hedges
Susan, an alcoholic, nervous vicar’s wife, has to travel to Leeds to go to the off-licence because of her debts with the local shopkeeper, distracts herself from her ambitious, and, as she sees him, vainly insensitive husband and his doting parishioners by conducting an affair with a nearby grocer, Ramesh discovering something about herself and God in the process.
Waiting For The Telegram – Performed by Margaret Glenn
Violet is a confused, elderly woman in a nursing home who has been told by the excited staff she will soon be receiving a congratulatory telegram from the Queen in honour of her one-hundredth birthday. This, however, perplexes Violet as she wanders far back in her memory to an age where telegrams brought news of the death on a battlefield. Violet ruminates about a long-lost love with her only real friend, a gay male nurse at the home named Francis.
Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet – Performed by Karen Peters-Parker
Miss Fozzard, a spinster in late middle age who works in a department store, is slightly ridiculous, but aware that she is. Her emotionally-impoverished life takes a definite turn for the worse when she’s forced to take in her disabled older brother, to whom she’s never been close and who, since his brain injury, openly mocks his sister. Then some slight foot trouble brings her to the attention–and brings her the attention–of a podiatrist. In a way that’s not what she dreamed of or would have imagined, Miss Fozzard is about to get a taste of life.
