The York Theatre Royal’s tour of The Habit of Art, the play about Auden and Britten that did well last year and was due to be revived for a festival in New York, has had to be cancelled. He keeps well back, as I do, but immediately embarks on his spiel, that he’s from Middlesbrough and on an employment scheme and do I want anything in the way of dusters or dishcloths. If it’s dark and with no street lights, the first thing one notices getting home are the stars and how high the beck. Printed on 150 gsm Logan Wove paper and numbered 1 to 350, these editions have been quarter-bound in a Bamberger Kaliko bookcloth with Sirio paper sides, and feature a cover image by Peter Campbell and six original illustrations by Jon McNaught.

9781800811928: House Arrest: Pandemic Diaries - AbeBooks

Oakeshott wrote that she had leaked the messages because it would take “many years” before the end of the inquiry, which could be a “colossal whitewash”. Caustic and swinging between nostalgia and criticism of the present political system, it's only let down marginally by the surprisingly boring 'driving through Leeds' coda. There are many depressing items of news in today’s Observer but the most lowering is that, on account of his support for Brexit, Ian Botham is thought likely to be raised to the peerage. Today’s barber is my partner, who, while professing to admire my abundant locks, manages to make me look like a blond Hitler. I have watched the recordings of the Talking Heads monologues, but because of social distancing I’ve not been able to attend rehearsals or meet the performers or the directors.

On the vaporetto one passed the fire station, the gleaming boats ready arrayed, and that seemed wondrous too, that here even the fire engines were in boat form.

Alan Bennett | Stage | The Guardian Alan Bennett | Stage | The Guardian

Young enough then to believe that theatre and indeed satire could do some good, I was proud of this piece, though it garnered few laughs and was referred to by the rest of the cast as ‘the boring old man sketch’.

Alas, he could not attend rehearsals or meet the actors, but he was thrilled to receive a lovely thank you card from Martin Freeman, who replaced him in A Chip in the Sugar, and Bennett carried it “about with me in my pocket like a hand warmer. As my Mrs often says, 'if only it were longer' - Only 44 actual (smallish) pages of musings, I've read thicker takeaway menu's, however, none offering anything as delicious as what Mr Bennett serves up here. What in normal circumstances is one of Rupert’s good habits is to pick up any stray scraps of paper to put them in the bin, and this evening on the corner of Regent’s Park Road he retrieves a bit of paper which turns out to be a (previously used) tissue.