--- title: "Alan Bennett's Talking Heads" year: 2020 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/alan-bennetts-talking-heads" fi1m_id: "alan-bennetts-talking-heads" imdb_id: "tt12313046" tmdb_id: 105250 fi1m_score: 75 critics_score: 65 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-10-04T07:46:37.778863+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T07:46:44.113506+00:00" region: "CL" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Alan Bennett's Talking Heads (2020) Created by Alan Bennett · 35m · Comedy, Drama ## Identity Alan Bennett's Talking Heads - **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/alan-bennetts-talking-heads - **Type:** Series - **Fi1m ID:** alan-bennetts-talking-heads - **IMDb ID:** tt12313046 - **TMDB ID:** 105250 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12313046/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/105250 **Fi1m score: 75** · Critics 65 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* Twelve people in twelve rooms, each confiding the one thing they should never have said out loud > Bennett’s monologues, remade in lockdown with a cast no normal year could afford, still cut as deep as they did in 1988. Watched one a night they are a pleasure; watched in a run, the trap-doors start to creak. ## Synopsis Twelve monologues, each about 35 minutes long, each one actor in one room talking to the camera. Irene Ruddock (Imelda Staunton) sits at her front window with a notepad and writes letters of complaint to the council, the chemist and the police about the young couple opposite. Susan (Lesley Manville), a vicar’s wife, is not coping with the flower rota or the communion wine. Lesley (Jodie Comer), an actress, has been cast in a film and would like us to understand that she is a professional. Graham (Martin Freeman) lives with his mother, who has met a man in town. Lorna (Monica Dolan), newly widowed, drives out to the stretch of road where her husband came off his motorbike. Ten of the pieces are remakes of Alan Bennett’s originals from 1988 and 1998; two are new. ## Review Alan Bennett wrote the first *Talking Heads* for the BBC in 1988: six people, six rooms, each talking to the camera for half an hour about a life going wrong while they watched. Thirty-two years on, the BBC has remade ten of the originals and added two new pieces, shot in the spring of 2020 on the sets of *EastEnders* while the rest of television was dark. The cast is the kind you could not assemble in an ordinary year. The writing has held. Taken one a night, which is how they were built to be taken, this is good television and sometimes better than that; taken in a run, you start to see the hinges. Imelda Staunton’s Irene Ruddock is the one to start with. Patricia Routledge played her in 1988 as a busybody you could pity; Staunton plays her as a woman who enjoys the harm she does, pen in hand, lips pressed, and the laughs stop earlier than they used to. We were frightened of her, which we had not expected to be, and the thing that did it was the pleasure on her face as she licks an envelope. Martin Freeman has the harder job in *A Chip in the Sugar*, because Bennett played Graham himself, and Freeman sensibly does not attempt the voice. He gives Graham a tight, pleased little smile every time his mother lets him down, and it is enough. Jodie Comer takes on Lesley in *Her Big Chance*, which was Julie Walters’s part, and she is the best thing in the twelve. Lesley is an actress with a role in a film she has not read properly, and Comer plays every line of her self-regard straight, so that we hear what is being done to her and she does not. We laughed at her a good deal and then felt we had been unkind, which is exactly what Bennett intended. Lesley Manville’s Susan, the vicar’s wife in *Bed Among the Lentils*, was Maggie Smith’s part in 1988, and Manville makes it her own inside five minutes by playing the drink rather than the wit. Harriet Walter’s Muriel, in *Soldiering On*, is a widow coping beautifully, which in Bennett is never good news. The two new monologues are a mixed pair. *The Shrine* gives Monica Dolan a woman whose husband has died on his motorbike and who takes to tidying the verge where it happened. It moved us more than we had bargained for, chiefly through what Dolan does with her hands when she talks about the flowers other people have left. *An Ordinary Woman* gives Sarah Lancashire a mother and a premise we will not set out, and it is the one piece where Bennett seems to have begun with the shock rather than the person. Lancashire does everything that can be done with it. It is still the episode we would skip. There is not much production to speak of, and that is right. Each piece is a kitchen, a lounge or a bedroom, dressed to the character, and the camera mostly sits and looks. The seven directors come from the theatre, Nicholas Hytner among them, and the best of them know that the cut is the only instrument they have: the picture goes to black, time has passed, the face comes back a little worse. Where it goes wrong, someone has got nervous and started pushing in or drifting to the window, as though a face were not enough. It usually is. The trouble with a run of twelve is the shape. Bennett’s second series, in 1998, went darker than the first, and several of these pieces take a turn in the second half that we will not describe. Seen once, in their own year, they were a slap. Seen back to back they become a device, and we caught ourselves waiting for the trap-door rather than listening to the person standing on it. The complaint that some of the turns now feel cheap is fair about two of them. For the rest, the turn only confirms what the face has been telling us for twenty minutes. The certificate is 18, which may surprise anyone who remembers the originals as teatime viewing; the language is mild and the subject matter is not. Watch them one at a time, in the evening, with the phone in another room. The ones built on spite and the ones built on grief both need a night’s sleep between them. *Fi1m score 75, published 4 October 2026.* ## Straight answers **Is Alan Bennett's Talking Heads worth watching?** *Alan Bennett's Talking Heads* is worth watching for anyone who likes to sit with one actor and one face for half an hour, and we scored it 75. Taken one a night, as it was built to be, it is good television and sometimes better; watched in a run, the second-half turns start to feel like a device. Start with Imelda Staunton or Jodie Comer. **How long is Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, and what is it rated?** *Alan Bennett's Talking Heads* has episodes of about 35m. It is a comedy and drama series. **Where can I watch Alan Bennett's Talking Heads in Chile?** *Alan Bennett's Talking Heads* is not on any streaming or rental service in Chile at the moment. It is available in 3 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, and is it suitable for children?** *Alan Bennett's Talking Heads* carries a UK 18 certificate for its subject matter rather than for anything shown, and it is not for children. There is no violence on screen and the language is mild, but several monologues deal with grief, spite and adult situations that take a dark turn, and we were frightened of Staunton's Irene Ruddock in a way we had not expected. **How does Alan Bennett's Talking Heads compare to Fleabag?** *Alan Bennett's Talking Heads* and [*Fleabag*](https://film.one/tv/fleabag) both put one person in front of the camera and let them say what they tell no one else, but Bennett's pieces are single sittings with strangers while Waller-Bridge builds a story over two series. Fleabag is the funnier and the ruder, and its second series is the stronger work; Talking Heads is quieter, older in manner and better taken one at a time. **What should I watch after Alan Bennett's Talking Heads?** After *Alan Bennett's Talking Heads*, try [*Fleabag*](https://film.one/tv/fleabag) (2016, Fi1m 90): Direct address used as a weapon; the camera is the only one she tells. Then [*The Lady in the Van*](https://film.one/film/the-lady-in-the-van) (2015, Fi1m 64): Bennett and Hytner again, with Maggie Smith refusing to leave the drive. ### Reviews we read (4) - **The Guardian**, Lucy Mangan (90/100, inferred): Mangan calls the revival a masterclass that retains the original monologues’ impact. She singles out Imelda Staunton’s menacing performance and Bennett’s evocative writing. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/23/alan-bennetts-talking-heads-review-still-a-masterclass-in-storytelling) - **Evening Standard**, Alastair McKay (70/100, inferred): McKay finds Bennett’s monologues warm-hearted and rewarding, though best savoured rather than binged. He praises the extraordinary cast and the gift Bennett’s writing gives its actors. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/talking-heads-alan-bennett-bbc-two-review-a4477761.html) - **Radio Times**, Patrick Cremona (70/100, inferred): Cremona calls the remake a highlight of the lockdown TV schedule. The accessible metadata offers no further detail about what the review praises. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/alan-bennett-talking-heads-review/) - **The i Paper**, Barbara Speed (30/100, inferred): Speed finds the revival’s dark twists dated and underdeveloped, making some episodes feel cheap rather than probing. She praises Jodie Comer’s performance for its comic precision and knowing edge. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/talking-heads-bbc1-review-dated-dark-twists-lucian-msamati-alan-bennett-monologues-jodie-comer-458637) ## Details - **Created by:** Alan Bennett - **Creator:** Alan Bennett - **Director:** Nicholas Hytner, Jeremy Herrin, Jonathan Kent, Marianne Elliott, Nadia Fall, Sarah Frankcom, Josie Rourke - **Writer:** Alan Bennett - **Cast:** Imelda Staunton as Irene Ruddock; Sarah Lancashire as Gwen; Harriet Walter as Muriel; Jodie Comer as Lesley; Lucian Msamati as Wilfred; Martin Freeman as Graham; Rochenda Sandall as Marjory; Lesley Manville as Susan - **Runtime:** 35m - **Release (Chile):** 23 June 2020 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww6Oex3MI90 ## Where to watch in Chile Not streaming, renting or buying in Chile at the last check. Also available in: CA, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Talking Heads* (1988): The originals, with Routledge and Smith; shorter, plainer and still the measure. - *Fleabag* (2016), Fi1m 90: Direct address used as a weapon; the camera is the only one she tells. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/fleabag.md) - *Shirley Valentine* (1989): A Liverpool housewife talks to the wall and then does something about it. - *Secret Honor* (1984): Altman locks Nixon in a study with a tape recorder and a bottle. - *The Lady in the Van* (2015), Fi1m 64: Bennett and Hytner again, with Maggie Smith refusing to leave the drive. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lady-in-the-van.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/alan-bennetts-talking-heads