Three eminently respectable Yorkshire couples are in the midst of their joint silver wedding celebrations when they receive a rude shock - they are not legally married. Confronted with this revelation, the couples face a host of personal dilemmas - not to mention the fear of the public scandal that would ensue if the news were to get out. Hovering closely over the proceedings is the Yorkshire Argus’ alcohol-soaked photographer, keen to record the evening’s events for posterity, an...

13 plays and dramatisations of the works of the influential playwright, novelist and essayist J. B. Priestley - plus bonus programmesJ. B. Priestley was one of Britain's most significant writers. His output was prodigious: in his lifetime, he penned 26 novels, 39 plays and hundreds of essays. He enjoyed great success on stage, notably with Dangerous Corner, Time and the Conways and An Inspector Calls, which experimented with narrative str...

When he graduates with his law degree, handsome and charismatic Langston Hudson is ready to hit the ground running as a lawyer with his family's firm, but a routine traffic stop during a night out with his friends quickly derails his plans and turns his world upside down. Langston and his friends are arrested after officers find half a million dollars' worth of drugs in his car. When Jacqueline Hudson learns of her son's arrest, she immediately begins to build her case. She is one of the t...

This book integrates a science and business approach to provide an introduction and an insider view of intellectual property issues within the biotech industry, with case studies and examples from developing economy markets. Broad in scope, this book covers key principles in pharmaceutical, industrial, and agricultural biotechnology within four parts. Part 1 details the principles of intellectual property and biotechnology. Part 2 covers plant biotechnology, including biotic and abiotic st...

Alan Bennett's classic story about Queen Elizabeth IIWhat would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story.The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely ( JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading na...

NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING DAME MAGGIE SMITH'The first book that ever made me laugh out loud' Adam Kay'Utter genius' Daily MailIn 1974, the homeless Miss Shepherd moved her broken down van into Alan Bennett's garden. Deeply eccentric and stubborn to her bones, Miss Shepherd was not an easy tenant. And Bennett, despite inviting her in the first place, was a reluctant landlord. And yet she lived there for fifte...

The Shielding of Mrs Forbes Graham Forbes is a disappointment to his mother, who thinks that if he must have a wife, he should have done better. Though her own husband isn't all that satisfactory either. Still, this is Alan Bennett, so what is happening in the bedroom (and in lots of other places too) is altogether more startling, perhaps shocking, and ultimately more true to people's predilections. The Greening of Mrs Donaldson Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on...

Alan Bennett's first collection of prose since Writing Home takes in all his major writings over the last ten years. The title piece is a poignant family memoir with an account of the marriage of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the uncovering of a long-held family secret. Bennett, as always, is both amusing and poignant, whether he's discussing his modest childhood or his work with the likes of Maggie Smith, Thora Hird and John Gielgud. Also included are his muc...

'I seem to have banged on this year rather more than usual. I make no apology for that, nor am I nervous that it will it make a jot of difference. I shall still be thought to be kindly, cosy and essentially harmless. I am in the pigeon-hole marked 'no threat' and did I stab Judi Dench with a pitchfork I should still be a teddy bear.'Alan Bennett's third collection of prose Keeping On Keeping On follows in the footsteps of the phenomenally successful Writing Ho...

An unruly bunch of bright, funny sixth-form boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a place at university. A maverick English teacher at odds with the young and shrewd supply teacher. A headmaster obsessed with results; a history teacher who thinks he's a fool.In Alan Bennett's new play, staff room rivalry and the anarchy of adolescence provoke insistent questions about history and how you teach it; about education and its purpose.The History Boys premièred at th...

Alan Bennett's A Life Like Other People's is a poignant family memoir offering a portrait of his parents' marriage and recalling his Leeds childhood, Christmases with Grandma Peel, and the lives, loves and deaths of his unforgettable aunties Kathleen and Myra. Bennett's powerful account of his mother's descent into depression and later dementia comes hand in hand with the uncovering of a long-held tragic secret. A heartrending and at times irresistibly funny work of autobiography ...

*** Pre-order ENOUGH SAID, Alan Bennett's fourth collection of diaries and prose, now! Publishing March 2026 ***Killing Time is a wonderful surprise gift from Alan Bennett - a new story, set in a home for the elderly; a glorious, darkly comic treat.'A mini-masterpiece.' THE TIMES'Full of wit and style.' OBSERVER'A terrific cast of characters, and secrets and chaos aplenty.' iNEWS