Alan Bennett has once or twice had a go at being a little more unbuttoned as he writes, but it hasn't always worked. "Sometimes, particularly in summers in New York," he once confided to the readers of the London Review of Books, "I have tried to write in shorts or with no shirt on and found myself unable to do so, the reason being, I take it, that writing, even of the most impersonal sort, is for me a divestment, a striptease even, so that if I start off undressed I have nowhere to go."

For a man who once observed that he required a police cordon before he could unknot his tie, this process of self-exposure must always have been an awkward one; in recent years, however, close readers could be forgiven for thinking that Bennett has been casting aside – in his writing at least – overcoat and scarf and jacket and sweater with something approaching abandon.

I posted this on the Ivy forum before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fabg5HwKln0&feature=related