Desert Island Discs | Richard Griffiths
Based on The History Boys by Alan Bennett
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is one of this country's leading character actors - Richard Griffiths. Most recently, he won three Best Actor awards for playing the English master in Alan Bennett's play 'The History Boys' but he has cross-generational appeal - perpetual adolescents revere his performance as gay Uncle Monty in the film Withnail and I while the younger generation know him as beastly Uncle Vernon from the Harry Potter films.
TweetLady in the Van (2015)
The true story of Miss Shepherd, an eccentric woman of uncertain origins, who 'temporarily' parked her broken-down van in writer Alan Bennett's London driveway for 15 years.
Start the Week | Nicholas Hytner
Hytner made his name and fortune in the 1990s with the musical Miss Saigon. Further successes came with theatre and film productions of The Madness of King George and The History Boys, and the sell-out One Man, Two Guvnors. During the year of the pandemic Hytner has sought to keep the theatre afloat with performances of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.