Check Out "The Lady in the Van" by the Delightful Alan Bennett
by Sara W
Maggie Smith's latest starring role is decidedly opposite the imperious Dowager Countess she portrays on Downton Abbey. In The Lady in the Van, Smith stars as Mary Shepherd, an elderly and eccentric woman who lives in her van, which she kept parked in playwright Alan Bennett's driveway for 15 years. Bennett, an author and playwright, developed something of a friendship with her, discovering that, like all of us, she had a past and a family, and wasn't entirely what she seemed. Smith was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition this week about her role in the film, and her take on Bennett's relationship with Shepherd.
Bennett, whose play The History Boys was also made into a movie, wrote the story of his interactions with his driveway occupant, Miss Shepherd, which is collected in The Lady in the Van : and other stories. He also adapted the story into a West End play and a BBC 4 radio performance. Both, like the movie, starred Maggie Smith in the title role, because once you've cast the perfect person, why try again?
For anyone new to the wonderful wit of Alan Bennett, my favorite book of his is The Uncommon Reader, in which Queen Elizabeth II enters a bookmobile parked outside of Buckingham Palace out of curiosity, borrows a book to allay the awkwardness of the exchange, and becomes a voracious reader, changing her conception of her people and her role, and the future of the monarchy forever. It's a delight.
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