Page 28 - Phonebox Magazine November 2014

Book Review
Bookshop, Olney Tel: 01234 714592
Thelma Shacklady
Heartbreak Hotel by Deborah Moggach
Following the success of ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’, Deborah Moggach has written another novel in a similar vein. This time
the hotel is situated in a rural area of Wales, rundown like the one in India.
Retired actor Russell Buffery, Buffy to his friends, has been left a B&B in his friend’s will. Tired of life in London, he decides to move to Wales and continue where Bridie had left off.
A sociable person, he enjoys the company of those who visit and so they fail to leave after breakfast, as normally required, and become more like house guests.
This does cause a problem; what can he offer for lunch? When the poor condition of the building is pointed out to him, Buffy conceives the idea of running residential courses for the recently divorced, ‘Courses
Sandra Metcalf
for Divorces’. This enables the participants to learn the skills possessed by their recent partners and, incidentally, to improve the building in which the courses will be taught. ‘Basic home repairs’, ‘Gardening’ and ‘Car maintenance’ would all come in useful, while the basic cookery course would provide the food for all involved.
This provides the setting for the novel, and the author then introduces the reader to the various characters attracted by an advertisement in a national newspaper – shades of ‘The Best Exotic ...’
This is a light-hearted, amusing novel, which is an easy read for a long November evening.
It is great fun, with some neat cameos of unhappy, insecure women, drawn together by the common purpose of life after divorce. For some reason, Buffy’s courses fail to
attract many men, a fact which causes some dismay amongst those who see it as the possibility of a second chance at matrimony! Read and enjoy, but don’t take it seriously.
BACKING INTO THE LIMELIGHT The Biography of ALAN BENNETT
‘Valuable, well researched and readable’ Daily Mail
Alexander Games
about the personalities involved (such as the conflict with Kenneth Moore) to provide leaven and keep the reader involved. However, this is overall a well-written, funny and entertaining read if not in the same league as Bennett’s ‘Writing Home’ and ‘Untold Stories’, but then we could hardly expect it to be.
Backing Into The Limelight: The Biography of Alan Bennett,
by Alexander Games
While the best source for Alan Bennett’s life remains his own biographical writings,
they are, naturally enough, the ‘edited versions’ – not only because of their author’s fierce determination to maintain his privacy but also because turning fact and anecdote into a good story is what successful writers do, be it their own life or someone else’s, and few can structure a better story than Mr Bennett.
This book, in a sense, is also an edited version since it was written without its subject’s cooperation. Indeed, Alexander Games’ attempts to interview Bennett provide an entertaining coda to the book, but it does provide a different perspective. It is celebratory rather than critical, but is 28 Phonebox Magazine
balanced enough not to grate.
It does reveal a few new facts and some insights, particularly into Bennett’s early career at Exeter College and his working relationships during the legendary ‘Beyond the Fringe’ years.
It also provides a good picture of the way the famously private writer has dealt with the press over the years: “a remarkable and at times farcical tale of trust mislaid, and eventually lost”.
Put together from secondary sources and some thoughtful analysis of Bennett’s work, it offers a useful chronology of Bennett’s writings and career. This can occasionally read a bit like a reference source and the middle section particularly is a little dense and long-winded about the stage plays. It needs more of the revealing anecdotes