Two Besides

Alan Bennett’s twelve ‘Talking Heads’ are acknowledged masterworks by one of our most highly acclaimed writers. Some 30 years after the original six, Bennett has written ‘Two Besides,’ a pair of monologues. Each, in its way, is a devastating portrait of grief. In ‘An Ordinary Woman’, a mother suffers the inevitable consequences when she makes life intolerable for herself and her family by falling for her own flesh and blood; while ‘The Shrine’ tells the story behind a makeshift roadside shrine, introducing us to Lorna, bearing witness in her high-vis jacket, the bereft partner of a dedicated biker with a surprising private life. The two new ‘Talking Heads’ were recorded for the BBC during the exceptional circumstances of coronavirus lockdown in the spring of 2020.