The Habit of Art

Went to the press night of Alan Bennett's new play, The Habit of Art, tonight. I always forget that under that cosy exterior, the man has a mind for theatre like a steel trap, designed on post-modern lines. The "main action" - between Auden and Britten, two men whose work I admire without really understanding anything about their lives - is a play within a play; and people are constantly breaking in and out of role. There's a lot of playing about with self-consciously self-referential writing; and the nearest comparison I can think of is Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead, in the hopping in and out of two universes; except that, literally 40 years on, it's not really like that either... Richard Griffiths and Alex Jennings are extraordinarily good as Auden and Britten, and Frances De La Tour does a wonderful job as the rather slinky director. It's booked out, other than returns, until the end of January; but there are another couple of months of the run after that...

ETA - reviews from the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph are somewhat raving and deservedly so; the Times is slightly less convinced...