After seeing one of his many ­theatre and TV plays featuring an accidentally epigrammatic Yorkshire matriarch, Alan Bennett’s Mam commented: “My, you’ve had some script off me!” As writers do, he had perhaps somehow hoped close relatives would not notice their violent cannibalisation.

The Confessions
lyttelton, National Theatre, London

Portia Coughlan
Almeida Theatre, London

After seeing one of his many ­theatre and TV plays featuring an accidentally epigrammatic Yorkshire matriarch, Alan Bennett’s Mam commented: “My, you’ve had some script off me!” As writers do, he had perhaps somehow hoped close relatives would not notice their violent cannibalisation.

The Anglo-French theatre-maker Alexander Zeldin was more open with his mother about her life being the source for his extraordinary new play, The Confessions, reaching the National Theatre on a European tour. However, she asked not to be named in publicity or reviews, and the writer–director also interviewed other women from her generation.

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