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l i b r a r y 
Most of Alan Bates's plays, films and television films began
as
books; this is an annotated list. Many can be found easily at
your
library or bookstore. Titles which are out of print in the
US are often available in England, or via the Internet's
excellent resources such as BookFinder.
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One of the many pleasures of having an interest in Alan
Bates's work, is the literary nature of many of the projects
he chooses. Here are five titles representative of his recent
activities:
Two plays by Yasmina Reza
 
"Art"
presumably needs no introduction, though it will surprise some
that it is such a good read. (Though I can not imagine it as
a film, it translated brilliantly to radio.)
 In "The Unexpected Man," "... He
is a well-known novelist, she a passionate admirer of his work.
She has his latest book in her handbag, and would be reading
it, if she did not fear his reaction would be embarrassing or
disappointing. In an evening lasting an hour and a quarter, it
takes 50 minutes for him to break the silence, 60 for her to
start reading his "The Unexpected Man," and roughly
73 for them to acknowledge who they are and what they feel. Order
them online from Amazon
or Barnes and Noble.
"In the Company of Actors,"
by Carol Zucker
 "...Visiting
the major acting schools in England, reading every interview
she could get her hands on, watching countless films and plays,
and sending out hundreds of letters, Carol Zucker finally winnowed
her cast down to two dozen. (Eight were later "painfully"
edited out by the publisher.) She asked each actor for a minimum
of three hours interview time. ...
The result makes for fascinating
reading. Here are some of the greatest actors of our time thinking
out loud about their craft: What is it to prepare for a role?
What is the difference between acting for a live audience or
the camera? (British actors tend to work in all forms.)
What are the differences between
U.S.-style "method" acting and the more classical British
and Irish style of acting? In the process of talking about these
highly subjective subjects, one also gets a mini-course in the
history of modern British and Irish theatre and a real glimpse
into the mind and soul of an actor.
"I got wildly different answers
to the questions, the questions being a way of getting at the
actors' personalities," Zucker said. "Alan Bates,
for example, got such a kick out of everything I asked. He thinks
deeply about everything. ..."
"Love in a Cold Climate"
and Other Novels
by Nancy Mitford
Penguin Books; ISBN: 0141181494
 Review,
Amazon.co.uk
Gathering three of Nancy Mitford's most famous works --The
Pursuit of Love and The Blessing are included here
alongside Love In A Cold Climate--this collection is the
perfect introduction to a writer of great wit and charm, a singular
voice in modern English prose whose themes are deeper and more
profound than brief acquaintance might suggest. The first two
novels, especially Pursuit..., are semi-autobiographical:
the Radletts of Alconleigh are portraits of Mitford's own eccentric
clan, while she herself appears as Fanny, a family cousin and
the novels' narrator. The irrepressible, precocious Radletts
provide many of the early instances of Mitford's deliciously
wicked humour:
There was much worse drama when
Linda, aged twelve, told the daughters of neighbours, who had
come to tea, what are supposed to be the facts of life. Linda's
presentation of the "facts" had been so gruesome that
the children left Alconleigh howling dismally, their nerves permanently
impaired, their future chances of a sane and happy sex life much
reduced.
Following the amorous trajectories
of Linda Radlett and of Polly Hampton, the first two books here
are at once extremely funny and deeply serious, delineating the
possibilities for love in a world circumscribed by the formal
expectations and conventions of marriage. Mitford's heroines
dramatise the search for a true or ideal relationship, regardless
of social institutions or sexual orientation. If her casual attitude
to adultery and, particularly, her portrait of Cedric--a gay
character who is charming, flirtatious, and above all happy--resulted
in her work being vilified by contemporaries for its "decadence"
and "immorality", her exploration of female sexuality
seems now to be resolutely modern, arguing the right to happiness
and fulfillment.
Nancy Mitford's considerable literary
output--biography, journalism, translation, fiction--has been
somewhat eclipsed by the biographical extravagance of her extraordinary
family: her sisters Unity and Diana (the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley)
were enthusiastic fascists who notoriously cultivated the friendship
of Adolf Hitler; another sister, Jessica, ran away to America
and became a left-wing journalist, later writing The American
Way of Death. Her case has not been helped by her subject-matter,
for the milieu of the wealthy upper classes and their deep-rooted
snobbishness and casual bigotry is one that might easily repel
a reader who misses the irony, satire and the surfacing of darker
concerns that characterise the books. A shame, for she is one
of the true originals of modern English writing. --Burhan
Tufail
Mainly About Lindsay Anderson,
A Memoir
by Gavin Lambert
Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-17775-1
 Lindsay Anderson's "About John Ford"
combined a critical biography with a memoir of his guarded friendship
with the great Western director.
Now
Gavin Lambert, a close and lifelong friend of Anderson's since
their days at Cheltenham School in the forties, has essayed a
similar kind of tribute. The result is an elegant, intimate and
witty salute to one of the foremost figures of post-war British
cinema and theatre.
Alan Bates, who worked
with Anderson a number of times, was interviewed for the book;
and there are photos from the film of David Storey's "In
Celebration," which Lindsay Anderson directed:
"Lindsay was
a great friend. If I really needed advice, professional or otherwise,
I consulted him. He was so clear-headed. I remember him saying
once, 'Remember, no offer is an insult.' "
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A through F
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- Ballad of the Running Man (novel)
Shelley Smith
Harper Brothers, ISBN
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- Butley (play)
- Simon Gray
- Methuen Drama
- ISBN 0-413-34060-0
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- The Caretaker (play)
Harold Pinter
Grove Press, ISBN 0-802-13237-5
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The Cherry
Orchard (play)
Anton Chekhov
Oxford University Press |
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The Common Pursuit (play)
Simon Gray
Methuen, ISBN 1-299-60430-7
Alan Bates did not appear in this play: he created
the role of playwright Hamish Partt in Unnatural Pursuits,
the tv dramatization of the two journals below, which Gray kept
during the writing, casting, and several productions of The
Common Pursuit in London, LA and New York. To really enjoy
the journals, it's important to be familiar with the play. And
the more you know about the play and the journals, the more you
can revel in the details of Unnatural Pursuits, which
is available for rental.
An Unnatural Pursuit
(London production journal for The Common Pursuit)
Simon Gray
St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-83371-7
How's that for telling'em, fat lady?:
A short life in the American Theatre
(US production journal for The Common Pursuit)
Simon Gray
Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-15139-6
 IT IS A TESTAMENT to their friendship
that Gray, Bates (shown here as Hamish Partt--Gray's self-portrait)
and Harold Pinter, (who directed The Common Pursuit in
London) are still working together after Unnatural Pursuits.
In it, Pinter is skewered as Hector Duff: Richard Wilson, in
a performance that isn't an impersonation--there is no physical
similarity--is hilarious nonetheless. (Unbelievably, Gray had
hoped that Pinter, who occasionally acts, would play himself.)
A further twist: in 1996 Richard Wilson, a splendid actor,
directed Simply Disconnected, Gray's sequel to Otherwise
Engaged, both starring Bates. Otherwise Engaged had
been directed by Pinter, and one assumes that under normal circumstances
Pinter would have directed the sequel. How ironic that instead,
the director should be "Hector Duff"! At times Simon
Gray's life resembles his art.
In a 1993 interview*, Mel Gussow asks Pinter, "Was there
a play you regretted directing?" Pinter replies, "Yes,
I shouldn't have directed the last play of Simon Gray's I directed,
The Common Pursuit. I was very unhappy directing that,
and I had just given up smoking, too. It was an absolute disaster.
Simon's written this book about it, which is quite funny I have
to say and pretty accurate. It was not a good experience, but
I had such marvellous experiences with his other plays."
Gussow: "You're not going to direct Simon Gray again?"
Pinter: "No, no, no."
Gussow: "But you are still friends."
Pinter: "Yes. We're very very close friends, very much so."
Summer of 1997: Pinter directed Bates in Gray's Life Support.
Sitting behind me at the first Richmond performance: Richard
Wilson.
*Conversations With Pinter, Mel Gussow,
Grove Press ISBN 0-8021-3467-X
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- The Dance of Death (play)
- August Strindberg
- W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN: 0-393-04437-8
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A Day in the Death of Joe
Egg (play)
Peter Nichols
Grove Press, ISBN 1-199-48274-9 |
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- Doctor Fischer of Geneva, or, The Bomb Party (novel)
- Graham Greene
- Penguin Books Ltd., 1980, ISBN: 0-140-18528-3
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Duet for One
(play)
Tom Kempinski
Samuel French, ISBN 0--573-11091-3 |
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- The Dog It Was That Died
Tom Stoppard
- Plays for Radio, 1964-1983
- Faber and Faber, ISBN 0--571-14482-9
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- An Englishman Abroad (play) in Alan Bennett, Plays
2
- Alan Bennett
- Faber & Faber, ISBN 0-571-19442-7
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- The Entertainer (play)
- John Osborne
- Penguin USA, ISBN 0-140-48178-8
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- Far from the Madding Crowd (novel)
- Thomas Hardy
Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-140-43126-8
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- The Fixer (novel)
- Bernard Malamud
- Farrar, Straus, Giroux
- ISBN: 1-199-45603-9
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- For Ian Charleson, a Tribute (nonfiction)
- Alan Bates and others
- 1990, Constable, London, ISBN 0-094-70250-0
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- Four Seasons (play)
- Arnold Wesker
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