New Alan Bennett (1954, Modern History) drama to be broadcast on Radio 4

A new drama by Exonian Alan Bennett (1954, Modern History) is to be broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday, 27 September. Denmark Hill is an adaptation of an old screenplay recently discovered in Mr Bennett’s archive.

With echoes of Hamlet, the play is a black comedy about a leafy London suburb seen largely through the eyes of a 15-year-old girl.

The original script was written as an uncommissioned TV/film screenplay in 1981/2. The long-forgotten script was discovered by Tristram Powell, the Denmark Hill‘s director, among the archive of Mr Bennett’s papers now housed in the Bodleian Library.

Mr Powell and Mr Bennett went on to adapt the play for radio in collaboration with Honor Borwick. The play will be broadcast for the first time at 2.30pm on 27 September and will be available on the BBC website afterwards.

You can read more about Denmark Hill on the BBC website.