Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings in a scene from Alan Bennett's The Lady In The Van. Photo / Getty Images
Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings in a scene from Alan Bennett's The Lady In The Van. Photo / Getty Images
The line between tragedy and comedy is often very thin indeed and so it is with Miss Shepherd, the somewhat deluded, sad character who is the Lady in the Van.
Our play reading group had a really hilarious evening reading Alan Bennett's play, based on the real story of theelderly lady who lived in a van in his street, eventually driving it into his front garden where she remained for 15 years.
While Alan Bennett is quite open about his intention to use the experience of playing host to this strange character for the purpose of writing a play about her, I think he was genuinely concerned about her and did help her a lot, shopping for her and calling in health professionals when needed.
He employs a unique device. He's written two Alan Bennett characters who talk to each other, ie, he talks to himself as he mulls over the problems of having Miss Shepherd as his permanent front yard guest.
We'd have to get two men of similar appearance to play the two Alan Bennetts if we were going to stage the play.
The other challenge with staging The Lady in the Van would be in getting a large van on to the stage.
Miss Shepherd liked to paint her vans (she had a succession of them) bright yellow and too bad if she happened to drop some Madeira cake into the paint pot. I suppose it gave the paint some interesting texture, added interest.
I'm sure that with the magic of theatre all problems could be overcome if and when we go ahead and produce The Lady in the Van.
