Talking Heads - Soldiering On/Her Big Chance/A Chip in the Sugar

Work:: Talking Heads (S5191)

A series of monologues, funny and poignant, normally from two to four of these would be performed at a time. A Cream Cracker Under The Settee tells of an old woman who has a fall, but her pride doesn't allow her to accept help. Bed Among the Lentils tells of a woman with a drink problem, married to a vicar who exploits her recovery actually caused by an affair with an Indian shopkeeper. A Lady of Letters is the story of a woman obsessed with writing letters of complaint and reporting her neighbours who eventually finds comfort in prison. Soldiering On is the tale of a well-to-do woman who finds one day that she's a widow and her husband has left her ill equipped to handle her own affairs - and her son loses her money in bad investments.

Author

Alan Bennett

Listing:: L0171738678

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Current production:Work

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Soldiering On/Her Big Chance/A Chip in the Sugar

Soldiering On - the newly bereaved yet stoical Muriel confronts the future. Forced to face the facts about her husband, her son and her reduced circumstances, she remains undaunted. Her Big Chance - Meet Lesley, an actress; she was Woman in a Musquash Coat in Crossroads and Chloe in Tess (no Chloe wasn't in the book). She has just completed a video ("targeted chiefly on West Germany") in which she plays Travis, a career girl who enjoys life and spends a remarkable amount of time topless. A Chip in the Sugar - Graham finds life difficult enough at the best of times; when Mother meets an old flame and seems set to marry him Graham's old insecurities (Will he be parted from her? Is there someone watching the house?) rear their ugly heads again. Fate, eventually, rescues Graham and he resumes his normal life of banal muddle under his Mother's amnesiac tyranny.