Soins Intensifs

Beginning life as a 1982 BBC TV screenplay entitled _Intensive Care_ ,

_Father! Father! Burning Bright_ was subsequently transformed into prose by

Alan Bennett "in the hope of finding more to the character" Midgley than had

emerged from its screen version. The result is vintage Alan Bennett.

_Father! Father! Burning Bright_ is a bittersweet comedy of manners based on

the humdrum existence of Denis Midgley, an ineffectual schoolteacher reviled

by his elderly father, bored wife and dull pupils, who is abruptly pulled from

a parent's evening to be told that his father is dying. "On the many occasions

Midgley had killed his father death had always come easily". When fantasy

fades and reality bites, however, Midgley finds himself reassessing his

relationship with his father as he clings to life and Midgley camps outside

the under-resourced hospital that pays scant attention to the life or death of

Midgley senior. As bored relatives shuffle in and out, Midgley strikes up an

unlikely relationship with Nurse Valery that leads to an unlikely victory for

Midgley's father. Told with Bennett's trademark spareness and laconic approach

to life, death and life up north, _Father! Father! Burning Bright_ is a

perfect introduction to Bennett's writing. -- _Jerry Brotton_