Memory’s weird ways

‘She goes off to the Maldives. That’s all I can remember about her,’ laughed Alan Bennett as he struggled to recall the name of the Australian physiotherapist he’d invented for his TV play about Miss Fozzard and her feet.

‘She goes off to the Maldives. That’s all I can remember about her,’ laughed Alan Bennett as he struggled to recall the name of the Australian physiotherapist he’d invented for his TV play about Miss Fozzard and her feet. Bennett had volunteered to subject himself to a Mastermind-style grilling from Mark Lawson (for Radio 4’s Front Row) after one of the contestants on the TV quiz had chosen Bennett’s plays as his specialist subject. Bennett scored more than his TV rival — just — passing on six questions (and getting a couple wrong). His lack of writerly pomposity, amused and not irritated by his own forgetfulness, was endearing. But the mock-grilling was also an intriguing insight into the workings of the creative imagination.