Last updated at 13:23, Tuesday, 10 June 2008

The next play to open in the Theatre by the Lake’s summer season, Alan Bennett’s The Lady in the Van, tells the story of Miss Shepherd (“a bigoted, blinkered, cantankerous, devious, unforgiving, self-centred, rank, rude, car-mad cow”) who in 1974 drove her clapped-out Bedford into the playwright’s garden and stayed there till she died 15 years later.

Alan Bennett

In an exclusive interview for the Main House programme, Bennett says he had a couple of stabs at turning Miss Shepherd’s story into a play but they didn’t work because he couldn’t discover how to tell his own story during the period when he played host to this not particularly welcome guest outside his front door.

Then he hit on the idea of splitting himself in two: “Alan Bennett had to be interacting with Miss Shepherd. If there was only one, I would have had to have had him turning to the audience pretty regularly to explain himself or share his thoughts. That would be quite possible to do but it would have got quite tedious.

“When I thought of having the two Alan Bennetts, I could see that there would be a lot of fun in it.

“My irritation with myself and my crossness with her made for some comedy and some of that we found when we were rehearsing it [for the first production]. We exploited that more in rehearsal than I had done in the script.”

The Lady in the Van was first produced in London in 1999 with Maggie Smith as Miss Shepherd.

“Maggie used to complain that she got more bruised in this production than any other she had ever done,” says Bennett. “She was always having to climb in and out of the van in the dark.”

The Theatre by the Lake’s production stars Pamela Buchner as Miss Shepherd, David Ericsson as Alan Bennett 1 and Peter Rylands as Alan Bennett 2. It is directed by Ian Forrest, with a set designed by Martin Johns.

The Lady in the Van opens tomorrow and runs until Friday 7 November.

Already running are Arsenic and Old Lace and The Bogus Woman, which both run to November 5. The Lonesome West, by Martin McDonagh, opens on Friday, June 13. The Importance of Being Earnest opens on Friday, July 18. Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker opens on Friday, July 25.

As well as single tickets the Theatre has ‘early bird’ offers and a season ticket for £60. Visit www.theatrebythelake.com or call 017687 74411.

First published at 11:37, Thursday, 05 June 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk