LOOK WHO’S TALKING

Jodie Comer leads an allstar revival of Alan Bennett’s masterpiece

PICK OF THE WEEK ALAN BENNETT’S TALKING HEADS Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm & 9.30pm; Thursday, BBC1, 7.30pm

Who needs big blockbuster productions and expensive special effects? The most unmissable television event of the year consists of nothing more than lone actors speaking straight to camera.

Jodie Comer (right), Sarah Lancashire, Martin Freeman, Lesley Manville and Tamsin Greig are but a few of the incredible list of names assembled to star in this series of monologues by one of Britain’s greatest living playwrights, Alan Bennett (inset). Brilliantly entertaining yet acerbically insightful and comically bittersweet, these are deeply affecting studies of ordinary people and the human condition – but packed with moments that will have you laughing out loud.

First broadcast in 1988 with stars including Maggie Smith, Julie Walters and Bennett himself, Talking Heads now returns as a series of 12 teleplays, including two that are previously unseen on screen.

Incredibly, this project has been put together in just the past few weeks, the result of BBC bosses having to come up with inventive new plans after realising that the social-distancing rules of the lockdown meant that filming normal television shows would be impossible.

As Bennett told the Radio Times: ‘The cast is astonishing, and they all agreed at the first time of asking. I hope this is because they liked the scripts.’ He added, with a typically self-deprecatory quip: ‘Or maybe it was because nobody else was offering.’

Britain’s leading theatre directors – including Nicholas Hytner, Marianne Elliott and Josie Rourke – have taken charge behind the camera, with a skeleton crew filming on the Shepperton set where EastEnders is made.

The series begins on Tuesday with a double-bill starring Imelda Staunton as an all-too-nosy neighbour (A Lady Of Letters), followed by Sarah Lancashire playing a housewife tangled up in emotions beyond her control (An Ordinary Woman).

The entire run will be available on iPlayer following the first broadcast.