The Lady in the Van turns the raw material of fact into fiction and back again

THE film of The Lady in the Van, starring Maggie Smith, is the latest success of the popular playwright and former actor, Alan Bennett, now aged 81.

The film, previously a stage play, originated in Alan Bennett’s annual Diary in the London Review of Books, a caustic and often hilarious selection of the highlights of his past year, which, even when read on the page, recalls Bennett’s mournful, deadpan Leeds-accented voice.

Diary, play and film are based on the true story of Miss Shepherd, an elderly lady who parked the van she lived in in Alan Bennett’s driveway in Camden Town’s Gloucester Crescent in 1974 as a temporary measure, and stayed there until her death in 1989 — 15 long years for her reluctant host.