BENNETT BOWS OUT AT THE BRIDGE

Nights In The Gardens Of Spain/ Miss Fozzard Finds Her Feet (Bridge Theatre, London)

Verdict: Last of the summer monologues

THE last of the Talking Heads Live monologues at London’s Bridge Theatre, starring Tamsin Greig and Maxine Peake, make an intriguing pair, displaying Alan Bennett’s gift for light and shade.

On the shady side, Nights In The Garden Of Spain sees Greig (pictured left) playing Rosemary, a mousey suburban lady who befriends a neighbour who shot her husband dead after years of abuse.

The start is deceptively cosy, as Rosemary addresses us from her conservatory, overlooking her abundant garden.

Her hands twist around each other as she recounts her growing relationship with Fran from next door — letters exchanged, prison visits — before coming to a sickening realisation.

She’s a timid woman and Greig nails her brilliantly, with tiny eyebrow twitches, small breaths and the hasty stifling of all excitement — before yielding to despair.

As Miss Fozzard, by contrast, Peake is a stridently prim Yorkshire woman who finds sexual healing at the hands of a saucy chiropodist.

Peake relishes the part, savouring every syllable of innuendo. It is a slightly lurid performance, but enjoyably so.

I’m intrigued to know how the people of Yorkshire will like being so ruthlessly spoofed by a Lancashire lass, when Peake reprises her turn (with Imelda Staunton in A Lady Of Letters) at Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield’s Crucible next month.