People
by Alan Bennett
Venue: Westerham Hall
Performance dates: 4th – 7th May 2022
Alan Bennett loses none of his mischievous wit nor his sense of the ridiculous in his comic play People. Bennett revealed that People was inspired by his sense of unease while visiting a National Trust house. Set in the vast crumbling pile that was once her family’s South Yorkshire seat, Lady Dorothy Stacpoole, once an international model who put the haute in haute couture, bravely battles, in diminished circumstances, to keep the wolf from the door. She valiantly fends off her sister’s dogged attempts to have it gifted to a grateful nation! One hair-brained scheme after another has led her to this moment where the inevitable must, eventually, prevail. Bennett’s characters are, as always, brilliantly observed, from the blue-blooded lady herself, to her sister, her wonderfully eccentric companion and the protagonists from the National Trust, the mysterious ‘Concern’, the myopic bishop, and the hapless cast and crew of a low-budget blue movie! And, of course, not forgetting many, many fine pos and their contents from past illustrious guests…