Alan Bennett's Talking Heads

Lovely to see the 'Talking Heads' format being revived, with new people reading some of the classics from 32 years ago, with Bennett also penning some new ones.

Nice to have something a bit different on the BBC.

I've loved it ! My particular favorite is Martin Freeman in A Chip in the Sugar. Such an amazing performance !

Not having seen the original Talking Heads that debuted over 30 years ago, I was keen to watch this special pandemic rendition of Talking Heads which revived 10 of the episodes from series 1 and 2. Alan Bennett wrote 2 new ones pre-pandemic. The tone is subtle yet searing at times. Some episodes work better than others, but still worth watching.

Hopefully it won't take another pandemic for Alan to bring back Talking Heads for another series. I'd like to see Danny Dyer, any of the Harry Potter stars, any of the Spice Girls, Ant or Dec make an appearance in a new series.

Only seen the 1st three but so happy to see real actors and wonderful writing, I'm so sick of all the reality shows and repeat of films on all the channels it was enlightening to see such talent. I look forward to seeing the rest of the series and will add to this review at the end of the series.

A series of no-brainers led to the belated rebirth of Alan Bennett's seminal TV monologues series "Talking Heads" in the era of the pandemic. After a quick whip-round and you get some of the finest British actors of the modern era and reduced production crews almost doing a "greatest hits" run through on the hauntingly empty sets of Eastenders.

So - not much new here materialwise and mainly of interest for a series of powerful performances - only some cod northern accents spoil the fun but no one is below excellent and I was particularly moved by both Jodie Comer and Tamsin Greig. The best is still undoubtedly the evergreen Lady of Letters performed by the superlative Imelda Staunton. Of the two "new" ones written in 2019, An Ordinary Woman is rather too disturbingly incestuous to even be engaging and The Shrine is unexpectedly touching and majestically done by Monica Dolan. They hardly feel out of step with the originals, either way.

In British culture the Alan Bennett monologue is a well-trodden presentation - and the sparse magnetism and sharp writing is dulled somewhat by how chokingly regimented the single-person narratives have to be. The very slow zoom. The sitting down and fondling a teacup. Those constant fades to black. It's difficult to make it seem or feel dynamic and in the era of experimental TV anthologies like Inside No. 9 or Room 104 settling in for half an hour of stiff theater can be rather tedious.

However - given the times we are in, no-brainer or not, it does feels very apt and in these loooong barely edited performances you do get to really appreciate just how skilled these actors are, it's just a shame the majority aren't the first ones to read it.