After Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads series of monologues were put on the A-level syllabus, numerous students eagerly wrote to him for advice. His reply was perhaps not what they were after. He sent postcards saying their ideas were as good as his “and they should treat me like a dead author who was thus unavailable for comment”. The advice was not as facetious as it might sound, he said, in that a playwright is not the best person to talk about their own work, “for the simple reason that he is often unaware of what he has written”. Bennett has written for the latest edition of the Radio Times ahead of the 2020 version of his series, remade by the BBC for a new generation under strict physical-distancing rules. The new stars include Lesley Manville playing the role made famous by Maggie Smith in Bed Among the Lentils; Jodie Comer succeeding Julie Walters in Her Big Chance; and Imelda Staunton taking on Patricia Routledge’s role in A Lady of Letters. The new series includes two unperformed monologues that Bennett wrote a couple of years ago, which he says are quite bleak. The Shrine, with Monica Dolan, about one of the makeshift memorials people put up by the side of the road after an accident; and An Ordinary Woman, with Sarah Lancashire, which is suggested by Jean Racine’s Phèdre, “which I did for school certificate in 1950 and have always felt to be a bit of a cop-out”. The Talking Heads monologues, the first series of which were written in 1987, have been a part of Bennett’s life for 30 years. Since they became part of the English literature syllabus, he has received many letters from students. “Some of them, it was plain, thought that writing to the author was a useful way of getting their homework done for them; others were more serious, genuinely feeling that I could give them some clues as to the inner meaning of what I had written. “I fell in with very few of these requests, generally sending a postcard saying their ideas about the monologues were as good as mine and they should treat me like a dead author who was thus unavailable for comment.” Bennett, who has not left his home since lockdown, says the new cast is “astonishing” and admits that the monologues ask a good deal of the actors. Performing A Chip in the Sugar in Guildford, where he forgot his lines three times, made him lose any desire he ever had to act, he reveals. The series has been produced by Bennett’s regular collaborator, Nicholas Hytner, who also directed three of the monologues. Hytner tells the Radio Times that the series was made at Elstree and could not have been made without the help of the EastEnders team. They are, Hytner said, the most distilled example of Bennett’s genius and his ability to get under the skin of people. Because Bennett is not on email and has no computer, all communication was via the writer’s landline. Things were slightly more high-tech during rehearsals, but not in a good way. “There’s no future in Zoom rehearsals whatsoever. It’s just horrible!” • The new series of Talking Heads begins with a double-bill on BBC One from 9pm on Tuesday 23 June, and all 12 monologues will be available on BBC iPlayer.