Awards '05
Alan Bennett
The judges felt that Alan Bennett was a "national institution" who is "British beyond any definition of Britishness". In his long career, Alan Bennett has quietly mined the underbelly of British society, presenting his findings in plays, scripts, essays and books with unrivalled wit, wisdom and intelligence. The judges wanted to reward him not only for the History Boys, which went on tour in 2005 but also for his "exceptional" Untold Stories published in 2005, a largely autobiographical compendium and sequel to the immensely successful Writing Home.
Born in 1934 in Leeds, the son of a butcher, Alan Bennett won a scholarship to Oxford and originally planned to become an historian, but his love of the stage won through. As well as writing novels, Alan Bennett has penned many plays for the BBC, with his Talking Heads series, first broadcast in 1988, appearing on the A-level syllabus within 10 years. Throughout his career, he has written extensively for the stage, his great success being The Madness of George III (1992), which he then adapted for the cinema to great acclaim.
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