The Abbey (1995 TV series)
Alan Bennett's personal tour of Westminster Abbey.
The Abbey (1995) is a three-part BBC documentary series written and hosted by playwright Alan Bennett, directed by Jonathan Stedall. It serves as a personal tribute to and tour of Westminster Abbey, structured as a day in the life of the building. The series has been noted for its slow, wry, and effete presentation, while containing a wealth of anecdotes, citations, and historical facts.
Quick Facts
- Director
- Jonathan Stedall
- Producer
- Andrew Holmes
- Starring
- Alan Bennett
- Cinematography
- Mike Fox
- Editor
- Pip Heywood
- Network
- BBC TV
- First aired
- 1995
- Runtime
- 180 min. (Three 60 min. episodes)
Facts from the source article.
Episodes
Programme One, A Royal Peculiar (56 minutes), provides a thorough tour of the Abbey. Bennett observes the early morning rituals of the Abbey family, including those who tune the organ, dust statues, deliver milk, and attend the first service. Bennett notes the English liking for clubs in the burial groupings, with architects, poets, and engineers in separate corners. He explains that Westminster Abbey is the Queen's Parish Church, a royal peculiar answerable directly to the British sovereign rather than the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Programme Two, Whom Would You Like to Be Seen Dead With? (53 minutes), continues Bennett's saunter through a day in the Abbey. He visits those interred or commemorated in Poets' Corner, including Lord Olivier, Lord Byron, the Brontë sisters, and Jane Austen. The episode reveals that many notables have had several different resting places, as successive kings and queens often rearranged them. Ongoing preservation efforts are examined, and Bennett goes high in the north transept to watch the head woodsmith and his crew combat dampness and woodworm.
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