Talking Heads

By Alan Bennett

July & August 2015

Elements Theatre Company presented a selection of Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads. An award-winning series of solo pieces, Talking Heads are considered a classic of contemporary drama, universally hailed for its combination of razor-sharp wit and deeply felt humanity. In Bed Among the Lentils, a vicar’s wife discovers a semblance of happiness with an Indian shop owner. A man’s life begins to unravel when he discovers his aging mother has rekindled an old flame in A Chip in the Sugar and in A Lady of Letters, a busybody pays a price for interfering in her neighbor’s life. Brilliantly funny, revealing, and gritty, these three snapshots are a riveting observation of humanity in all its humor and tragedy.

“The best moments in reading are when you come across something—a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours.”
―Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is highly regarded as one of the finest playwrights in Britain. Best-known for The Madness of King George III (1991) and The History Boys (2004) it was Talking Heads, originally created for BBC Television in 1987, that earned him the first of six Laurence Olivier Awards and made him a household name.

“Talking Heads,” Elements Theatre Company: The actors who portrayed the three lonely people in Alan Bennett’s monologues were so believable, so realistic, that at play’s end it felt a bit like waking up in another place. The actors’ British accents were flawless, but it was their understanding of their characters’ humanity that really delivered.”
—Cape Cod Times’ “Top Favorites” of 2015