Wonderful I enjoyed this so much. Alan Bennet has such mixture quirkiness, sharp perceptiveness and gentle sarcasm that must be unique. What a pleasure to watch and what a pleasure to listen to.
He can take an ordinary sentence without a lot of pretentious nonsense and make it appear like Shakespeare. How? I don’t know, but whatever it is not many people can do it.
GENIUS Alan Bennet... thank you for these uploads. Recommend to anyone and everyone... also A Lady of Letters, A Woman of no Importance, anything Alan Bennet is riveting xo
1:45 "Tombs at every turn." 2:08 "Not unlike walking on the outside deck of a liner..." Had this been a written page-turner, the accumulated similes and metaphors could spring a big surprise on Page 2 that we're visiting Westminster Abbey. Alan Bennett better than most hosts a masterclass of blending on-screen presenting and fine writing. Notice this documentary sampling the guides talking tourists through the Abbey? Typical of Bennett to step aside and let them clue us in, but it's more than that: cameras eavesdrop on nuances of character in the visitors, and the guides are competing stall-holders at market with their own individual quirks to keep your attention. This isn't info-dumping, and these aren't soundbites. "I knew Eliot quite well and he was ^so^ boring" - - dropping in on living memory...gone now. These varying voices are relief that colours the context and humanise the place, and this documentary art of equally informing, educating and entertaining is lost on modern filmmakers, along with the BBC's written charter. And Alan Bennett is self-effacing, but only to a certain extent - - "I don't like churches charging" - - he has his own uniquely recognisable voice, something that authors strive all their carrers to achieve.
Imagine 2000 people buried entombed in one place. Another similar prize as to the pyramids. Humanity does have it's sacred relics ... we're not monsters on every angle. It's a good thing.
Buyers and sellers in the temple…ironic. They are kidding about it being a church and not a museum. Unless of course my first sentence doesn’t matter anymore.
I get really irritated by modernised Bible versus that in their over simplification, lose all accurateness and meaning. A camel passing through the eye of a needle etc. is an example. Firstly, Though so often quoted, it is hardly ever adhered to, especially by the church. Although lower individual clergy may not be rich, the ruling level and the church as a whole, are positively loaded down with riches. Hypocrites! Secondly, so many people think that it is a literal ‘eye of a needle’ that a fully laden camel cannot pass through ( though how they think any camel, laden or not, could, is beyond me). The eye of a needle actually refers to a small gate in the wall around Jerusalem, through which people on foot could pass, without the worry of *carts, horses, donkeys or camels* trampling them as the daily to and fro of the city unfolded. Those * items, used as part of trade etc. laden with goods for markets etc. needed the much higher and wider gates to enter through. So the small gate, because of its comparative size, was called The Eye of the Needle. It would have been impossible for a camel with its back piled high with goods, to get through. Therefore, the admonishment in the Bible IS saying that a ‘fully laden camel would find it easier to fit through the small gate, than a man who had riches while others starve, be likely to get into heaven; ie. BOTH ARE IMPOSSIBLE. ‘ So many bible verses have been corrupted or mistranslated; interpreted or taken out of context, I fail to see how anyone with half a brain can believe them. If there is a God who inspired the Bible then he has gone the way of many present day writers…allowed someone else to change and exploit his work to line their own pockets. Fools!
How wonderful that Mr. Bennett is still with us at 87.
The latest edition of his diaries should arrive near the end of the month at the London Review of Books.
90 now. 90!
Wonderful I enjoyed this so much. Alan Bennet has such mixture quirkiness, sharp perceptiveness and gentle sarcasm that must be unique. What a pleasure to watch and what a pleasure to listen to.
That was wonderfully well put Caroline.
.i
"...just dispensed with the lions, and put it on rockers." Fabulous and typical Alan!!
😁
Alan could discuss the variety of ways paint dries, and I would still listen entranced.
Haha. I couldn't agree more, Ian.
He can take an ordinary sentence without a lot of pretentious nonsense and make it appear like Shakespeare. How? I don’t know, but whatever it is not many people can do it.
GENIUS Alan Bennet... thank you for these uploads. Recommend to anyone and everyone... also A Lady of Letters, A Woman of no Importance, anything Alan Bennet is riveting xo
I learned so much from this, and Bennett is magnificent, dropping exquisite lyrical phrases lightly throughout.
Nice.
Could someone please name the Sanctus version in the opening please? Which choir? It's flawless
The quintessential Englishman.
1:45 "Tombs at every turn." 2:08 "Not unlike walking on the outside deck of a liner..." Had this been a written page-turner, the accumulated similes and metaphors could spring a big surprise on Page 2 that we're visiting Westminster Abbey. Alan Bennett better than most hosts a masterclass of blending on-screen presenting and fine writing. Notice this documentary sampling the guides talking tourists through the Abbey? Typical of Bennett to step aside and let them clue us in, but it's more than that: cameras eavesdrop on nuances of character in the visitors, and the guides are competing stall-holders at market with their own individual quirks to keep your attention. This isn't info-dumping, and these aren't soundbites. "I knew Eliot quite well and he was ^so^ boring" - - dropping in on living memory...gone now. These varying voices are relief that colours the context and humanise the place, and this documentary art of equally informing, educating and entertaining is lost on modern filmmakers, along with the BBC's written charter. And Alan Bennett is self-effacing, but only to a certain extent - - "I don't like churches charging" - - he has his own uniquely recognisable voice, something that authors strive all their carrers to achieve.
Imagine 2000 people buried entombed in one place. Another similar prize as to the pyramids. Humanity does have it's sacred relics ... we're not monsters on every angle. It's a good thing.
Is this on DVD?
No, never transferred to DVD. There is only the 3-VHS set, this was taken from that.
Desperately tried not to compare one of the guides to Kenneth Williams....failed. :/
I can think of no guide better than K. Williams! Bona!
AB puts me to sleep in a good way!! ❤
Good Night.
Buyers and sellers in the temple…ironic. They are kidding about it being a church and not a museum. Unless of course my first sentence doesn’t matter anymore.
Nice
The Dean only answers to the Queen and the Almighty…and please don’t as me in what order.
So far as i know it wasnt Edward the Confessor but Harold 11 who was the last of the Saxon kings?
Yes, Harold Godwinson, killed during the Battle of Hastings. But II or 2nd, rather than 11.
Harold was not Saxon but had Viking roots.
Awful woman near the end being vile and judgemental about various poets! Very english, that kind of dense, superior coformism.
Alan put it like this, "People ruin everything."
I get really irritated by modernised Bible versus that in their over simplification, lose all accurateness and meaning.
A camel passing through the eye of a needle etc. is an example.
Firstly, Though so often quoted, it is hardly ever adhered to, especially by the church. Although lower individual clergy may not be rich, the ruling level and the church as a whole, are positively loaded down with riches. Hypocrites!
Secondly, so many people think that it is a literal ‘eye of a needle’ that a fully laden camel cannot pass through ( though how they think any camel, laden or not, could, is beyond me).
The eye of a needle actually refers to a small gate in the wall around Jerusalem, through which people on foot could pass, without the worry of *carts, horses, donkeys or camels* trampling them as the daily to and fro of the city unfolded. Those * items, used as part of trade etc. laden with goods for markets etc. needed the much higher and wider gates to enter through. So the small gate, because of its comparative size, was called The Eye of the Needle. It would have been impossible for a camel with its back piled high with goods, to get through. Therefore, the admonishment in the Bible IS saying that a ‘fully laden camel would find it easier to fit through the small gate, than a man who had riches while others starve, be likely to get into heaven; ie. BOTH ARE IMPOSSIBLE. ‘
So many bible verses have been corrupted or mistranslated; interpreted or taken out of context, I fail to see how anyone with half a brain can believe them. If there is a God who inspired the Bible then he has gone the way of many present day writers…allowed someone else to change and exploit his work to line their own pockets. Fools!