Bennett, Alan (1934– )

English dramatist and screenwriter. His works (often set in his native north of England) treat, with macabre, gruesome comedy, such subjects as class, senility, illness, and death. They include the series of monologues for television Talking Heads (1987) and Talking Heads 2 (1998), as well as his critically-acclaimed plays The Madness of George III (1991) and The History Boys (2004) both of which were adapted to film.

Bennett began his career writing and acting in Beyond the Fringe, a satirical stage revue (1959–64).

Other works include the TV films An Englishman Abroad (1982) and A Question of Attribution, and plays such as Forty Years On (1968), Getting On (1971), and Kafka's Dick (1986). A selection of prose writings was published as Writing Home (1994). His other screenwriting credits include A Private Function (1985) and Prick Up Your Ears (1987), based on the relationship between English dramatist Joe Orton and his lover Kenneth Halliwell. He later published the novellas The Laying on of Hands (2000), The Clothes They Stood Up In (2001), and The Uncommon Reader (2007).