Look Behind the Mask

A Master class from Alan Bennett

Thanks to Covid, there has been a re-make of Alan Bennett’s wonderful monologues ‘Talking Heads’ starring actors such as Sarah Lancashire, Martin Freeman, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Jodie Comer and Maxine Peake. In my humble opinion, they are every bit as good if not better than the original versions.

Bennett is brilliant at providing us with people who hide behind masks. His characters are damaged, delusional and sometimes deviant, but they are often unaware of their flaws, preferring to present us with their own sanitised version of themselves. The audience however can see behind the facades, and one of our pleasures is working out what characters are really like as opposed to what they say they are like (dramatic irony in practice). So when naïve would-be actor Lesley in ‘Her Big Chance’ is offered what she believes to be her breakout role in a new film for the West German market, we realise that she’s being exploited and that the film in question is not a Hollywood blockbuster but a cheap porn movie.

­­­In ‘A Woman of No Importance,’ Peggy Schofield is a clerical worker and self-described linchpin of her office. Over time however we realise that she is not as popular and significant as she assumed. When she is hospitalised for stress we find out she has in fact lost her job and her co-workers haven’t even bothered to visit. 

Bennett clearly has a genius for characterisation but we can learn a lot from him. If we put our characters behind masks, and allow our readers to work out what they are hiding, we can provide a very satisfying reading experience, and create some memorable characters as well.