Extremely shy and private writer-actor Alan Bennett lost his anonymity early when the success of the "Beyond the Fringe" revue (both in London and New York) thrust him into the limelight in the early 1960s. The least spectacular of the madcap ensemble, which also included fellow Oxford grads Jonathan Miller, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, this sandy-haired son of a Yorkshire butcher was a deft character player who never seemed to risk the others' flights of improvisation. Never stumbling, never soaring, the cautiously letter-perfect Bennett was, even then, more the writer than performer. Yet, of that talented quartet, Bennett has shown the most staying power, becoming arguably Britain's most endearing man of letters. In his writings for the stage, film, TV and literary weeklies, one can hear the voice of the last country parson.

Some of Bennett's best work has been for TV, beginning with the critically acclaimed BBC series "On the Margin" (1966). An association formed with Stephen Frears while the two were acting in 1978's "The Long Shot" (Bennett's feature acting debut) led to Frears' directing four installments of "By Alan Bennett--Six Plays" for the London Weekend Television (LWT) network. His collaboration with director John Schlesinger produced first "An Englishman Abroad" (1983), based on the true meeting between actress Coral Browne and notorious exiled British traitor Guy Burgess in 1950s Moscow, and later "A Question of Attribution" (1992), adapted from Bennett's own play about Sir Anthony Blunt, scholarly guardian of the Queen's paintings. Both aired as part of PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" as has much of his TV work crossing the pond. In his six dramatic monologues for BBC-TV, "Talking Heads" (1988), Bennett captured the loneliness of the TV age in a form as woefully intimate as the words and performances were poignant.

Bennett garnered praise for his early two-act plays "Forty Years On" (1968) and "Getting On" (1971) but did not have a play debut on Broadway until "Habeas Corpus" in 1975. His first screenplay produced was the hilarious "A Private Function" (1984), but he may have erred with his next effort, Frears' "Prick Up Your Ears" (1987), missing too much of playwright Joe Orton's life by choosing to dramatize biographer John Lahr's inquiry into Orton. Bennett's most distinguished film work has been "The Madness of King George" (1994), based on his 1991 play, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Though he occasionally still performs (a part in the A&E miniseries "Ashenden" 1992, a cameo in "The Madness of King George"), acting would seem to run against the grain of his reticence. It is much more to his taste to reveal himself discreetly in his prolific output of drama and prose.