Alan Bennett's Talking Heads: What the Must Watch reviewers think

Every week, the Must Watch podcasters review the biggest TV and streaming shows.

This week, Hayley Campbell and Scott Bryan share their thoughts on Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.

This series features new versions of Alan Bennett's much-loved monologues, with performers including Sarah Lancashire, Martin Freeman, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Jodie Comer and Maxine Peake.

It's available now on BBC iPlayer.

Have you watched it? What did you think? Leave your comments below...

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Scott says: "To have someone talking at you for 30 mins requires a great deal of attention"

“We’ve had a lot of content made under lockdown conditions where the content has been about the lockdown itself. This is the first show I’ve seen which is filmed under lockdown conditions, obviously something which wouldn’t have come happened if it wasn’t for the lockdown, but it’s nothing to do with the lockdown. It’s such a relief!

“What’s really interesting is this show was originally on 30 years ago, and that was a time in which you’d have these dramas where someone might speak for a fair period of time. Now it’s made me notice how modern day TV is so quick, going from scene to scene, so to actually have talking at you for 30 minutes straight requires a great deal of attention.

“We’re so used to having something visually in your face every 30 seconds saying ‘look at me, look at me’ and this isn’t the case at all.

“When theatres are closed throughout the country, TV has a responsibility to replicate theatre as much as it can. This hopefully will be the start of more commissioners thinking, right what else can we do to bring theatre to TV?"

Hayley says: "Don't watch them all at once"

“If you liked Talking Heads from before, you know the deal. It's a very ordinary-seeming character doing something like washing dishes or pouring a cup of tea, and they will be telling you something really ordinary which, by the middle of the thing, becomes far less ordinary and actually quite dark and depressing, and by the end they’re in a far worse place than when we met them.

"It’s Alan Bennett’s cheery lockdown pick-me-ups. It’s full of guilt, death, illness, and isolation, so if you are going to watch this, don’t watch them all at once: dish them out one by one. Otherwise I think you’ll be in a very strange mental place."

Alan Bennett's Talking Heads is available now on BBC iPlayer.

Must Watch is available as a podcast every Monday evening from BBC Sounds, or through your podcast app.

In this week's episode, the team also review The Luminaries.

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