Enough Said by Alan Bennett review – a man for all seasons

Nostalgia, shame and gossip from Alan Bennett in the fourth instalment of his diariesIn the introduction to this new instalment of Alan Bennett’s diaries, which run from 2016 to 2024, the author worries about what to write: “I have said everything before. At 90 it’s impossible to avoid repetition.” And, indeed, I was halfway through the entries for 2020 before they started to seem familiar. It turns out that I had already reviewed Bennett’s pandemic diaries when they were released as a slim standalone volume in 2022.Here they are again, then, this time embedded in a much longer stretch of journal-keeping, characterised by Bennett’s customary looping between past and present. The repetition turns out not to matter because the prose is sufficiently layered to take on new meanings as the context shifts. Bennett’s pandemic years read differently now that Covid is in the rearview mirror. The first time round, I got the impression that, devoted to the NHS though he is, the banging of pans on a Thursday evening struck him as a bit daft. Reading the section again, I’m convinced he detested the whole performative palaver. Continue reading...