Alan Bennett is one of England's best-loved playwrights. He is perhaps best known there for the BBC production of his Talking Heads TV plays, while the rest of the world may recognize him for the film adaptation of his play The Madness of King George. Over the last thirty years, Bennett has written ten stage plays, three screenplays, eight television documentaries, and over thirty plays for television. Yet Bennett's work has resisted "serious" reviews in academic publications, as his reputation as a comedic player during the early '60's has saddled him with the label "lovable." Joseph O'Mealy demonstrates that Bennett is a social critic, interested in depicting and analyzing the role playing of everyday life, a'la sociologist Erving Goffman. After providing a general introduction to Bennett as multifaceted playwright and actor, O'Mealy looks in depth at Bennett's oeuvre, starting with Beyond the Fringe and concluding with his most recent production, The Lady in the Van.</P>