“As an over seventy, I am officially exhorted to remain isolated, indoors,” Bennett notes wryly on 14 March 2020, “which is to say that my usual going-on now has governmental endorsement.”

“If you read someone else’s diary, you get what you deserve.” David Sedaris’ assessment of what it means to snoop on another’s private writing is blunt but also ambiguous. What if the writer willingly lets you into their world? In Alan Bennett’s case, readers have long been invited to consider his musings on people, places and things, as well as his thoughts on his own journey from Leeds schoolboy to English undergraduate at Oxford and acclaimed playwright. Enough Said, Bennett’s handsomely produced fourth collection of diaries and prose, takes in the tumultuous years between 2016 and 2024.

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