Clever, funny and fearless: Good Girl at Soho Theatre online reviewed

A new work by Alan Bennett features in Still Life, a medley of five ‘untold stories’ from Nottingham Playhouse. The dramas were filmed during lockdown. Before the Bennett première, there’s a monologue by a wittering granny complaining about the price of cereal in a deserted food bank. Then, a banality-crammed slice of jabber between two van drivers eating lunch on a flight of stairs. This is followed by a ten-minute soliloquy from a precocious schoolgirl whose insights include, ‘my books are very heavy’ and ‘England is not part of Scotland’. A fourth cascade of tosh is parroted by a dim cab driver who trundles around the city bantering aimlessly with an eminently forgettable passenger. All these characters seem to share a common mental affliction: they have nothing to say but they can’t stop saying it.

Finally, the Alan Bennett show begins. Frances de La Tour stars as a widow, Muriel, who sits at home rehearsing the speech she intends to make at her husband’s funeral.