Alan Bennett Quotes
I seem to be the only Western playwright not personally acquainted with the new President of Czechoslovakia [Vaclav Havel]. I envy him though. What a relief to find oneself head of state and not have to write plays but just make history. And no Czechoslovak equivalent of Charles Osborne snapping at your ankles complaining that the history you’re making falls between every possible stool, or some Prague Steven Berkoff snarling that it’s not the kind of history that’s worth making anyway. I wonder whether Havel has lots of uncompleted dissident plays. To put them on now would be somehow inappropriate. Still, he could write a play about it.
Alan Bennett, British Playwright, Diary, January 2, 1990
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
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Carter did much of his greatest work after his service as President.
She is commenting on productions of historical events or people by Hollywood which purport to be historical movies but in which there are fundamental distortions of both history and the truth. The article byline was “When people get history from entertainment, Hollywood’s obligation to the truth is heightened.”
Alan Bennett is an English actor, author, playwright, and screenwriter. He was born in Leeds and attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed to teach and research medieval history at the university for several years. His collaboration as writer and performer with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival brought him instant fame. He gave up academia, and turned to writing full-time, his first stage play, Forty Years On, being produced in 1968.
