Smut: Two Unseemly Stories by Alan Bennett (Profile Books, £12) (From The Northern Echo)

Smut: Two Unseemly Stories by Alan Bennett (Profile Books, £12)

5:02pm Wednesday 18th May 2011 in Fiction

A WIDOW, tired of her stifling upper middle-class lifestyle, finds her outlook much improved when she is introduced to the world of voyeurism by two mysterious students, while elsewhere, a secretly gay, married man finds himself blackmailed by a corrupt policeman as his wife carries on an affair with his father.

It’s not the usual territory for Yorkshire wit and national treasure Alan Bennett, but these are how events unfold in the two short stories featured in this pint-sized volume.

Anyone familiar with his previous work, such as Talking Heads or The Lady In The Van, should be well aware of what to expect. Smut is as funny, profound and insightful as anything in his back catalogue, and the bawdy, vaguely implausible plots are treated with his typically aloof, dry wit. This is as tasteful an exploration of the steamier side of life as you can ever expect to read.

James Cleary