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Alan Bennett is best known in this country as a member—along with Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook—of the remarkable quartet that wrote and performed the never-to-be- forgotten revue called Beyond the Fringe. Since then he has become one of Britain's most successful and most respected playwrights.
This volume introduces the American public to perhaps his greatest hit, Single Spies, the double bill that was the smash hit of the 1989 London theatre season. In two dazzling one-act plays— the first about Guy Burgess's life in Moscow. after he defected; the second portraying an imaginary confrontation between Anthony Blunt, the notorious "fourth man" and the Queen—Mr. Bennett performs a wickedly funny and profoundly disturbing dissection of Britain's celebrated espionage scandals, raising important questions about the meaning of patriotism and the nature of treason.
The two plays dovetail perfectly. As The New York Times drama critic Frank Rich wrote in his review of the London production, "Both halves are essential to Mr. Bennett's unusually deep perspective on the juiciest and most voluminously chronicled of modern espionage trials."
Talking Heads, six monologues which have been performed on BBC-TV, reveal another side of Mr. Bennett's talent—an acute sensitivity to the small tragedies and triumphs of everyday life which are so often simultaneously hilarious and deeply moving. Two of them shown in this country on public television have already proved memorable. In one, Maggie Smith depicts a minister's wife with a drinking problem, and in the other Mr. Bennett himself takes on the role of a middle-aged man still dependent on his mother, who is distressed when she takes up with an old boyfriend.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Drama, Playscripts, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Plays & Criticism, Fiction, Performing Arts / General, Cambridge Spy Ring, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, Allegory of Prudence, British and irish drama (dramatic works by one author)People
Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Coral Browne, Elizabeth II, Simon Callow, T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), Chubb, Phillips, Colin, Restorer, Queen Elizabeth II, Titian, Johannes Vermeer, Han van MeegerenPlaces
England, Courtauld Institute, National GalleryShowing 8 featured editions. View all 8 editions?
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Single Spies & Talking Heads
1990, Summit Books
Paperback
in English
- First Summit Books Edition (1)
0671692496 9780671692490
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Single Spies & Talking Heads
1990, Summit Books
Hardcover
in English
- First Summit Books Edition
0671728776 9780671728779
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Single Spies : Two Plays About Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, and Talking Heads: Six Monologues
1990-01-01, Summit Books
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Book Details
Edition Notes
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Contains:
Single Spies:
An Englishman abroad.
A Question of Attribution
Talking heads:
A chip in the sugar.
Bed among the lentils.
A lady of letters.
Her big chance.
Soldiering on.
A cream cracker under the settee.
Excerpts
first sentence
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- Created April 30, 2008
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December 7, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
August 9, 2022 | Edited by MARC Bot | normalize LCCNs |
May 3, 2022 | Edited by Lisa | added details from linked copy |
April 15, 2022 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
April 30, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record. |