Hill Topp House is a superior council home for the elderly, with an unforgettable cast of staff and residents. As staff start to be hospitalised with Covid, protocol breaks down. Miss Rathbone reveals a lifelong secret, and the surviving residents seize their moment, arthritis allowing, to scamper freely in the warmth of the summer sun.

We have a choir and on special occasions a glass of dry sherry. It''s less of a home and more of a club and very much a community. Presided over by the lofty Mrs McBryde, Hill Topp House is a superior council home for the elderly. Among the unforgettable cast of staff and residents there''s Mr Peckover the deluded archaeologist, Phyllis the knitter, Mr Cresswell the ex-cruise ship hairdresser, the enterprising Mrs Foss and Mr Jimson the chiropodist. Covid is the cause of fatalities and the source of darkly comic confusion, but it''s also the key to liberation. As staff are hospitalised, protocol breaks down. Miss Rathbone reveals a lifelong secret, and the surviving residents seize their moment, arthritis allowing, to scamper freely in the warmth of the summer sun. ''Violet? She''ll be having a little lie down,'' said Mrs McBryde. ''She likes to give her pacemaker a rest. I''ll rout her out.''

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ALAN BENNETT has been a leading dramatist since Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His works for stage and screen include Talking Heads, Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, The Madness of George III, an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows, The History Boys, The Habit of Art, People, Hymn, Cocktail Sticks and Allelujah! His collections of prose are Writing Home, Untold Stories (PEN/Ackerley Prize, 2006) and Keeping On, Keeping On. Six Poets contains Bennett's selection of English verse, accompanied by his commentary. His fiction includes The Uncommon Reader and Smut: Two Unseemly Stories., Alan Bennett has been one of our leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His television series Talking Heads has become a modern-day classic, revived for the BBC during the exceptional circumstances of the 2020 lockdown, including two new monologues, published as Two Besides.

His many works for the stage include Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van (together with the screenplay), A Question of Attribution, The Madness of George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The Madness of King George), and an adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. At the National Theatre, London, The History Boys (also a screenplay) won numerous awards including Evening Standard and Critics' Circle awards for Best Play, an Olivier for Best New Play and the South Bank Award. On Broadway, The History Boys won five New York Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics' Circle Awards, a New York Drama Critics' Award, a New York Drama League Award and six Tonys. Also at the National, The Habit of Art, People, Hymn and Cocktail Sticks. Allelujah! premiered at the Bridge Theatre, London.

His collections of prose are Writing Home, Untold Stories (PEN/Ackerley Prize, 2006) and Keeping On Keeping On. Bennett's selection of English verse, accompanied by his commentary is published in Six Poets, Hardy to Larkin. His lockdown diaries, published as House Arrest, was a Sunday Times bestseller. Fiction includes The Uncommon Reader, Smut: Two Unseemly Stories and another Sunday Times bestseller, Killing Time.