Alan Bennett’s ‘The Shielding Of Mrs Forbes’ – a Book at Bedtime on Radio 4

01 August 2011

Monday 15 to Friday 19 August

10.45-11.00pm BBC Radio 4

Alan Bennett reads one his delightful “unseemly stories” from his recently published novella, Smut.

‘The Shielding Of Mrs Forbes’ sends up the vanities and hypocrisies of Middle England and its obsession with appearances.

Bennett writes about unconventional sexual arrangements among the apparently conventional. The snobbish and priggish Mrs Forbes is appalled that her son Graham is “chucking himself away” by marrying the unprepossessing Betty. What she, apparently, doesn’t know is that her son is gay. Yet he believes that by marrying, he is not only ensuring his financial future, but also helping himself and his mother keep up appearances.

Reader/Alan Bennett, Producer/Gordon House for the BBC

Watch Alan reading ‘The Shielding of Mrs Forbes’ here, and from his other story ‘The Greening of Mrs Donaldson’ here.

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