"A Cream Cracker under the Settee- is, at first glance, a simple story about a dotty old lady who is scared of being moved into a home. But upon closer inspection clever layers of meaning, dramatic devices, and symbols begin to emerge.
Talking Heads was first broadcast on British television in 1989, and won vast amounts of awards, including the 1989 Hawthornden Prize and a BAFTA for Thora Hird. It has since been credited with being revolutionary and changing the course of British comedy for the better.
Up until that point British comedy had produced some legendary shows such as: "Morecombe and Wise-, which consisted of short sketches filling a half hour slot, and was so popular that it ran from the 50's through to the 70's, and "Monty Pythons Flying Circus- who managed to produce four feature length films (And Now For Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life).
Comedy sitcoms were also very popular, with shows like "The Young Ones-, "It's a Good Life- and "A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy- all attracting large audiences.
But it was in the 80's that comedy finally took off. There was the emergence of one of the first "topical- comedy shows, in the form of "Not the 9 O'clock News-. And in 1989 came "Talking Heads- which was also a "topical- comedy show, but not in the sense that we are used to today.
Alan Bennett apparently refused to deal with normal upper-class people', instead preferring to write about the ordinary people in today's world. This is shown clearly in "Talking Heads-, as he writes about an alcoholic vicar's wife in "Among the Lentils-, and a large breasted actress who gets her stage parts through her cup size, rather than her acting ability.
He could be seen to have taken his ideas from Samuel Beckett, an Irish playwright. They both used very few characters, they both used very little onstage action and both write to the Modernist/Post-Nazi literary tradition.