Name: Corrine Sing's review of The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett
Item: The Lady in the Van
Rating: 4
Author: Corrine Sing

Alan Bennett

Alan Bennett is the author of Writing Home, The Madness of George III, Talking Heads, The Clothes They Stood Up In and much else besides. Miss Shepherd lived in a Robin Reliant opposite Bennett's house in Camden Town. After a series of attacks on her van, he suggested she move, with her van, to his front drive. Initially reluctant, she agreed - and Bennett landed himself a tenancy that went on for fifteen years. The Lady in the Van is probably Alan Bennett's best-known work of non-fiction, and follows his other little blockbuster The Clothes They Stood Up In.

The Lady in the Van

Corrine Sing

Jen Casey

I am a huge fan of the gorgeous Maggie Smith and cannot wait to see the movie. This book left me feeling sad at how people can slip through the cracks with government services. This book can be read in one sitting I still found it to be quirky and funny with Miss Shepherds strategies on how she deals with day to day living and her relationship with Alan Bennett.

Shelby Doherty

** spoiler alert **
           Likes:
- Great audiobook narration - full cast of characters
- A truly crazy "true" story - I cannot believe that the author dealt with this lady for 2 decades!
- Super quick, breezy read

Dislikes:
- It is a true story but heavily relies on dialogue (which I feel cannot be the true exchanges that occurred). Miss Sheppard is so wacky that it is hard to believe at times.

Elize van Heerden

I adored this, the collection of stories of the eccentric old woman who lives in a van in the others front garden. 
Beautifully written and makes you chuckle about all the exchanges that happened between Bennett and Miss Shepherd.

Bilge Ince

Yasmin

Hanna Tillmanns 

Gavin

Clodagh Nolan-Smith

Hannah Pilling

Mary Baldwin

Deborah Meades

Film tie in edition of Alan Bennett's classic memoir. For fifteen years, the recalcitrant Miss Shepherd lived in her broken-down van on Alan Bennett's driveway in Camden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord, never under the illusion that his impulse was purely charitable. This account of those years was first published in 1989 in the London Review of Books. The play premiered in 1999, direct by Nicholas Hytner and starring Dame Maggie Smith, who reprise those roles in this new film adaptation. Shot on location at Bennett's house, Alex Jennings plays the author, alongside household names including James Corden, Frances de la Tour, Jim Broadbent and Dominic Cooper.

Corrine Sing &
The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett

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Corrine Sing &The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett

Reviews

Join the club

Corrine Sing &
The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett