The Lady in the Van

This was the final film of our season. Fortunately the DVD release was just in time for us to show it.

Our history shows us that Alan Bennett (The History Boys) and Maggie Smith (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotels et al as well as Downton Abbey) have always been popular so the combination of the two was irresistible.

It was also a very good film, although not quite the comedy the poster seemed to imply.

Here are my notes:

The Lady in the Van

UK 2015                      104 minutes

Director:                      Nicholas Hytner

Starring:                        Maggie Smith, Alex Jennings, Jim Broadbent, Frances de la Tour and Roger Allam

Awards and Nominations

• Won Best Actress Award (Maggie Smith) at the Evening Standard British Film Awards
• Nominations for Best Actress (Maggie Smith) at the Golden Globes and BAFTA Film Awards

“Having come a cropper with his screen adaptation of The History Boys in 2006, director Nicholas Hytner here hits the high notes that distinguished his 1994 stage-to-screen triumph The Madness of King George.”

Mark Kermode

In the 1970s Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) offers the temporary use of the drive to his north London house to a homeless woman (Maggie Smith). She parks her battered van outside his front door – and stays there for 15 years.

The film is based on Bennett’s 1999 stage play which itself derives from the piece he had written about Miss Shepherd in his book Writing Home, and it reunites many people who have worked with him over the years.  Maggie Smith appeared in A Private Function (1984), Bennett’s first screenplay for the big screen and created the role of Miss Shepherd in the stage version of The Lady in the Van. The play was directed by Hytner, who has directed all of Bennett’s recent stage work, mostly at the National Theatre.  Hytner and Bennett’s previous film was The History Boys (2006) and the principal cast members from this production, with the exception of Frances de la Tour who has a supporting role, appear in cameo roles in this film.

As a stage actor Alex Jennings has won three Olivier awards for his work, which has been mostly with the RSC or at the National Theatre.  Here he has worked many times with Nicholas Hytner and first appeared in a play by Bennett when he had a leading role in The Habit of Art.  He subsequently played Alan Bennett on stage in Untold Stories Bennett’s dramatization of one of his autobiographical sketches. He is a skilled mimic, and in addition to Bennett he has played characters as diverse as Prince Charles in The Queen (2006) and President George Bush in Stuff Happens, David Hare’s “history play” about the Iraq War, once again directed by Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre. 

Here is the trailer: