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Overview
The screenplay edition of the major motion picture adaptation, starring Maggie Smith, of Alan Bennett's acclaimed story "The Lady in the Van"
From acclaimed author and playwright Alan Bennett, whose smash hit The History Boys won a Tony Award for Best Play, comes the screenplay of The Lady in the Van-soon to be a major motion picture starring Dame Maggie Smith.
The Lady in the Van is the true story of Bennett's experiences with an eccentric homeless woman, Miss Mary Shepherd, whom he befriended in the 1970s and allowed to temporarily park her van in front of his Camden home. She ended up staying there for fifteen years, resulting in an uncommon, often infuriating, and always highly entertaining friendship of a lifetime for the author.
Read the screenplay of the film destined to be among the most talked about of the year, and discover the unbelievable story of one of the most unlikely-yet heartwarmingly real-relationships in modern literature.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250089755 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Picador |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 504 KB |
About the Author
Alan Bennett has been one of England's leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His work includes the Talking Heads television series, and the stage plays Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, and The Madness of King George III. His play, The History Boys (now a major motion picture), won six Tony Awards, including best play, in 2006. In the same year his memoir, Untold Stories, was a number-one bestseller in the United Kingdom.
Read an Excerpt
The Lady in the Van
The Screenplay
By Alan Bennett
Picador
Copyright © 2015 Forelake Ltd.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-08975-5
CHAPTER 1
The sound of squealing brakes, then a car crash.
FADE IN
EXT. COUNTRY ROAD. DAY. (1960)
A country lane c. 1960 with MISS SHEPHERD at the wheel of a van barrelling along, her face set and anxious. Distantly we hear the sound of a police siren (or bell it would be in 1960). She pulls the van into a side road or clearing and waits, ducking behind the seat as she sees the police car pass the end of the road. MISS SHEPHERD rights herself, checks the side of the van. Wipes her hand on it. Blood. She crosses herself. Then starts up the van and drives off the way she has come.
As she turns the corner, we see that the police car has stopped at the end of the road. A solitary policeman, UNDERWOOD, gets out of the car and watches the van disappear.
ROLL TITLES over —
INT. CONCERT HALL. NIGHT.
A glamorous pianist in a décolleté evening gown (along the lines of Anne Todd in 'The Seventh Veil' c. 1947) playing some bravura piano concerto.
As the titles end, so does the concerto, and we hear ALAN BENNETT in voice over and cut to —
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. STUDY. DAY.
ALAN BENNETT at his desk, writing.
ALAN BENNETT (V.O.)
The smell is sweet, with urine only a minor component, the prevalent odour suggesting the inside of someone's ear. Dank clothes are there too, wet wool and onions, which she eats raw, plus what for me has always been the essence of poverty, damp newspaper.
The sound of the lavatory flushing. ALAN BENNETT looks towards the toilet door.
ALAN BENNETT (V.O.) (CONT'D)
Miss Shepherd's multi-flavoured aroma is masked by a liberal application of various talcum powders, with Yardley's Lavender always a favourite, and currently it is this genteel fragrance that dominates, the second subject, as it were, in her odoriferous concerto.
MISS SHEPHERD comes out of the lavatory, pulls down her skirt, and leaves through the front door. We see something of the inside of the house and its contents, still at this date, c. 1976, fairly uncluttered.
ALAN BENNETT (V.O.)
But as she goes the original theme returns, her own primary odour now triumphantly restated and left hanging in the house long after she has departed.
Out of the window we see Miss Shepherd's van parked in the drive and MISS SHEPHERD herself rearranges some plastic bags beneath the van. She is tall and though her changes of costume will not be described in detail, she is generally dressed in an assortment of coats and headscarves but with a variety of other hats superimposed on the headscarves. Old raincoats figure, as do carpet slippers and skirts which have often been lengthened by the simple process of sewing on additional strips of material. She is about sixty-five.
ALAN BENNETT
(at the desk, speaks)
Tell her.
As he watches through the window, A.B. — his other self — comes out of the house.
EXT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
A.B. approaches the van.
A.B.
(at the van)
Miss Shepherd. In future I would prefer it if you didn't use my lavatory. There are lavatories at the bottom of the High Street. Use those.
MISS SHEPHERD
They smell. I'm by nature a very clean person. I have a testimonial for a Clean Room, awarded me some years ago, and do you know my aunt, herself spotless said I was the cleanest of my mother's children,
(A.B. gives up, and goes)
particularly in the unseen places.
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. STUDY. DAY.
A.B. catches ALAN BENNETT'S eye as he passes the study door.
ALAN BENNETT (V.O.)
The writer is double. There is the self who does the writing and there is the self who does the living. And they talk. They argue. Writing is talking to one's self, and I've been doing it all my life, and long before I first saw this house five years ago.
CUT TO:
EXT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY
Five years earlier, possibly with a subtitle, though the unkempt nature of the house and a 'For Sale' sign indicates that this is earlier. House empty. No van.
A.B. comes round the corner of Inverness Street into Gloucester Crescent, and then into the garden with an ESTATE AGENT.
A.B.
Fifteen?
ESTATE AGENT
Number 10 fetched seventeen.
A.B. looks discouraged.
ESTATE AGENT (CONT'D)
Come on. I thought you had a play on in the West End. These houses have got so much potential. Once you get rid of the junk. Well there you have it: Gloucester Crescent. Good street. On the up and up.
A.B. and the ESTATE AGENT walk up Gloucester Crescent. The street is alive with refurbishing activity. As he speaks workmen bring out a nice marble fireplace out of No. 63 and shove it in the skip, breaking it in the process. More workmen carry materials into another house.
ESTATE AGENT (CONT'D)
Big motor, have you? Loads of room.
INT/EXT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. STUDY. DAY.
A.B. carries boxes of books into the empty study. Through the window we see two men unloading a table or desk from a removal van. The sign now says 'Sold'.
EXT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
A.B. leaves the house.
EXT. CONVENT. DAY.
The van stalled nearby, opposite a Convent. From MISS SHEPHERD'S POV we see A.B., with a WHSmith bag, through the van windscreen which is grimy, with the dashboard hosting a variety of objects like a half-eaten tin of baked beans, a packet of biscuit also half-eaten, various tissues, packets of soap flakes etc.
A.B. stops to look at a cross (with a painted crucified Christ). MISS SHEPHERD appears at his shoulder.
MISS SHEPHERD
You're not St John, are you?
A.B.
St John who?
MISS SHEPHERD
St John. The disciple whom Jesus loved.
A.B.
No. My name's Bennett.
MISS SHEPHERD
Well, if you're not St John I need a push for the van. It's conked out, the battery possibly. I put some water in only it hasn't done the trick.
A.B.
Was it distilled water?
MISS SHEPHERD
It was holy water so it doesn't matter if it was distilled or not. The oil is another possibility.
A.B.
That's not holy too?
MISS SHEPHERD
Holy oil in a van? It would be far too expensive. I want pushing round the corner.
EXT. CONVENT. DAY.
A.B. starts to push. MISS SHEPHERD goes though her repertory of hand signals: 'I am moving off ... I am turning left' ... the movements done with boneless grace and in textbook Highway Code fashion.
A.B.
Are you wanting to go far?
MISS SHEPHERD
Possibly. I'm in two minds.
EXT. GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
A police car passes. MISS SHEPHERD stops the van and crouches down. MISS SHEPHERD emerges cautiously.
A.B.
Is that it?
MISS SHEPHERD
I need the other end.
A.B.
That's half a mile away.
MISS SHEPHERD
I'm in dire need of assistance. I'm a sick woman, dying possibly, just looking for a last resting place, somewhere to lay my head. Do you know of anywhere?
A.B. goes.
ALAN BENNETT (V.O.)
Bye bye madam. Mind how you go.
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. STUDY. DAY.
A.B. is back in the study, empty except for the desk and boxes of books piled high, which he has started to unpack.
ALAN BENNETT (V.O.)
A proper writer might welcome such an encounter as constituting experience. Me, I have to wait and mull it over.
ALAN BENNETT
She saw you coming.
A.B.
She's old.
ALAN BENNETT
You wouldn't get Harold Pinter pushing a van down the street.
A.B.
No. Unlike me. But then, I'm too busy not writing plays, and leading my mad, vigorous creative life.
ALAN BENNETT
Yeah. You live it. I write it.
EXT. GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
MISS SHEPHERD'S POV inside the van driving slowly round the street, sussing it out.
As she passes no. 23 her POV: A.B. outside with his bike, with RUFUS and PAULINE, neighbours living opposite.
RUFUS
Pretty house, not as big as ours, of course; but you're unattached.
A.B.
No. It's attached to the house behind.
RUFUS
No, you. You're ... single. Sickert once lived in the street, apparently; Dickens' abandoned wife. Now it's the usual north London medley: advertising, journalism, TV, people like you — writers, 'artists'. Anything in the pipeline?
A.B.
Well, I've got a play on in the West End.
RUFUS
Of course you have. Dare one ask?
A.B.
Thirteen five.
RUFUS
Oh my God!
A.B.
I know.
PAULINE
And we're twice as big, so what does that make ours worth?
RUFUS
Mind you, our new neighbour won't help the prices.
Shot of the van now parked at the top of the street.
A.B.
Yes, we've met.
RUFUS
Last year it was Gloucester Avenue. Now it's our turn.
PAULINE
She seems to have settled at sixty-six.
A.B.
Will they mind?
PAULINE
I hope not. We like to think we're a community.
A.B. rides off on his bike.
PAULINE (CONT'D)
What play has he got on?
RUFUS
We saw it. That domestic thing.
PAULINE
(thinks, then shakes her head)
Gone.
EXT. 42 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
Later. Plastic bags being hurled under the van by MISS SHEPHERD. Through the open window of No.42 we hear the sound of children playing London's Burning on their recorders, As this scene goes on, another small child arrives, lugging his cello home. FIONA PERRY comes out of the house.
FIONA
(to MISS SHEPHERD)
We thought you might like some pears. They're from our garden in Suffolk.
MISS SHEPHERD
Pears repeat on me.
She goes on hurling bags.
FIONA
Were you planning on staying long?
MISS SHEPHERD
Not with that din going on.
MISS SHEPHERD gets in the van, and closes the door. FIONA goes back into her garden where her husband is waiting.
FIONA
I know what you're thinking. Still, it's nice to feel we're doing our bit for the homeless.
GILES PERRY, her husband, says nothing.
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. STAIRS AND BEDROOM. DAY.
A.B. showing a young ACTOR round. The house is nearly empty.
A.B.
I'd like to keep it like this. Simple.
ACTOR
Monastic.
A.B.
Quite.
(moving into the bedroom)
This is my bedroom.
ACTOR
Nice.
A.B.
So do you like being in the play?
ACTOR
Love it. Love it. So English. Just what people want. Bed looks comfortable.
A.B.
Well maybe you could come round and give me a hand with the decorating.
ACTOR
Sure. My girlfriend's a dab hand at the painting.
The ACTOR looks out of the window and sees MISS SHEPHERD pushing her wheelie past.
ACTOR (CONT'D)
Oh hello darling. You look a character.
A.B.
Well yes this is Camden Town.
During the course of the film the house should gradually fill up with stuff so that at the finish there's as much clutter (of a superior kind) as the van.
CUT TO:
EXT. CAMDEN HIGH STREET. DAY.
A.B. gives sixpence to MISS SHEPHERD, who is sitting on the pavement which is covered with messages she has chalked up like 'St. Francis hurled money from him' and 'Say No to the Common Market'.
There is also a pile of pamphlets, one of which A.B. takes. She is just chalking in some rudimentary birds.
MISS SHEPHERD
Yes I'm here most days, I teach ... and the pavement is my blackboard. I also sell pencils. A gentleman came by the other day and said that the pencil he had bought from me was the best pencil on the market at the present time.
A.B.
(reading leaflet)
You're against the Common Market, I see.
MISS SHEPHERD
Me? Who said it was me?
A.B.
You're not the writer?
MISS SHEPHERD
Not necessarily. I'll go so far as to say this. They are anonymous. And they are a shilling. You've only given me sixpence.
A.B.
(pointing to the pavement)
It says there St Francis hurled money from him.
MISS SHEPHERD
Yes, only he was a saint. He could afford to.
PASSER-BY
(coming out of the bank and tripping over her)
Sodding beggars.
MISS SHEPHERD
I am not a beggar. I am self-employed. And this gentleman is my neighbour.
EXT. 42 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
MISS SHEPHERD is putting her bags back in the van.
FIONA
Oh. On the move again? You didn't stay long.
MISS SHEPHERD
No. Because it was non-stop music.
FIONA
Lucy is doing her O levels.
MISS SHEPHERD
It's the noise levels I'm worried about.
She prepares to move off.
EXT. GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
RUFUS and PAULINE in evening dress, with a picnic hamper and blankets, about to get into a cab. They wave to A.B.
RUFUS
Sorry about all this. Glyndebourne.
PAULINE
Cosi.
A.B.
Lucky you. Have fun.
As the cab goes up the street we see MISS SHEPHERD in her van, doing her elaborate hand signals and slowly moving down the Crescent.
RUFUS
Oh, look out. Madam's on the move.
PAULINE
So whose turn will it be now?
(to the cab driver)
Slow down.
RUFUS
(looking at his watch)
We don't want to miss the curtain.
PAULINE
Mrs Vaughan Williams?
RUFUS
No. The Birts.
PAULINE
Sixty-two?
Elaborate signing from MISS SHEPHERD that she is coming to a halt.
PAULINE (CONT'D)
No. No. No. Darling, that's us.
RUFUS
Stop the cab.
He runs back down the street.
RUFUS (CONT'D)
Sorry! You can't park here.
MISS SHEPHERD
I've had guidance this is where it should go.
RUFUS
Guidance? Who from?
MISS SHEPHERD
The Virgin Mary. I spoke to her yesterday. She was outside the post office in Parkway.
RUFUS
What does she know about parking?
PAULINE
(also having emerged from the cab)
Rufus! Tell her, we're going to Glyndebourne.
MISS SHEPHERD
I need a ruler. I must measure the distance between the tyres and the kerb. One and a half inches is the ideal gap. I came across that in a Catholic motoring magazine under tips on Christian parking.
RUFUS
This isn't Christian parking. It's a fucking liberty.
They head back up towards the cab.
They get back into the cab and drive off, some of this encounter having been seen by A.B.
EXT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
A.B. calls over to the van, now directly opposite his house.
A.B.
You didn't stay long outside sixty-six.
MISS SHEPHERD comes over the road to A.B., worried.
MISS SHEPHERD
Not with all that din. They're not musical, are they?
A.B.
Who?
MISS SHEPHERD
Sixty-one.
A.B.
No. Though they go to the opera. Are you all right?
MISS SHEPHERD
What with all this to-do, I think I'm about to be taken short. Can I use your lavatory?
She is already on her way into the house.
A.B.
No. The flush is on the blink.
MISS SHEPHERD
I don't mind.
She is in the house. We hear her calling 'Where is it? Where is it?' before the door bangs and we see A.B.'s agonised face.
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
Later. The toilet flushes and MISS SHEPHERD comes out past him saying nothing. Furious, A.B. calls after her.
A.B.
'Thank you?'
She ignores him.
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT — LAVATORY. DAY
A.B. scrubs out the lavatory.
EXT. YORKSHIRE COTTAGE. DUSK.
A.B's mother's cottage, in a village in the Yorkshire dales. Lights are on downstairs. We can see A.B's MAM through the window, on the phone.
A.B. (V.O.)
(on telephone)
I've got a meeting at the BBC.
MAM
What about?
A.B. (V.O.)
It's just something I'm writing.
MAM
I thought you were coming up.
A.B. (V.O.)
In a week or two.
INT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT/ INT. YORKSHIRE COTTAGE. DUSK.
A.B. on the phone to his mother. ALAN BENNETT at the desk.
MAM
I'm on my own.
A.B.
I know you're on your own.
ALAN BENNETT
We're all on our own.
MAM
Can I come down there for a bit? Is it a big house?
A.B.
Not really. You wouldn't like it. Too many stairs.
MAM
They have these chair lift things now.
(pause)
Are you still there?
A.B.
Yes.
MAM
The foot feller came today.
A.B.
Who?
ALAN BENNETT begins to write this exchange down, sat at his writing desk.
MAM
The foot feller.
A.B.
Do you mean the chiropodist?
MAM
You've written that down.
ALAN BENNETT
I haven't.
He has.
MAM
I've given you some script. I'm just raw material.
A.B.
No, you're not.
(pause)
Mam.
EXT. GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS rides her bike down the Crescent. MISS SHEPHERD has her door open, having just got up. She is fanning herself with a fan she has picked up somewhere.
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Are you alright?
MISS SHEPHERD
Yes. It's the van. Gets very close.
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
I imagine.
MISS SHEPHERD
You're tall.
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
My husband was tall. I'm Mrs Vaughan Williams. I won't shake hands. Gardening.
MISS SHEPHERD
The composer? 'Greensleeves'?
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Among other things. Why? Are you musical? I don't even know your name.
MISS SHEPHERD
It's Miss Shepherd, but I wouldn't want it bandied about. I'm in an incognito position, possibly.
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Safe with me.
EXT. 23 GLOUCESTER CRESCENT. DAY.
Later. MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS talking to A.B. MISS SHEPHERD in the background, sorting the plastic bags under the van.
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Shepherd. Drove ambulances in the war, apparently.
A.B.
So where did she spring from?
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
And a nun once.
A.B.
A nun?
MRS VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett. Copyright © 2015 Forelake Ltd.. Excerpted by permission of Picador.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Foreword,
Preface,
Film Diary,
The Lady in the Van: The Screenplay,
About the Author,
Also by Alan Bennett,
Copyright,