Director Nicholas Hytner and writer Alan Bennett, whose award-winning collaborations include The Madness of King George and The History Boys, return for this playful, inventive and relentlessly funny (and ‘mostly true’) adaptation of Bennett’s diaries.

The film tells the story of the relationship between Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) and the singular Miss Shepherd (Maggie Smith, clearly having a hoot in a lavish gift of a role she is reprising from the original 1999 stage production), a woman of uncertain origins who ‘temporarily’ parked her van in Bennett’s London driveway and proceeded to live there for 15 years. The unlikely, slowly deepening bond between Bennett and the cantankerous, malodorous homeless woman is recreated with warm affection – as is Bennett’s own reaction to his squatter’s fierce devotion to prayer, casual racism and explosive defecation.

If the set looks authentic, that’s because the movie was shot on location in the real street and house where the events really happened. Big hearted and hugely entertaining (Time Out describe it as “the movie equivalent of cosying with a warm buttery crumpet in front of a fire on a winter’s day”), it sparkles with life – it’s a rich tale of community spirit stuffed with astute observations about human nature and the every day. Enjoy!

• There will be a Cinébabies screening of The Lady in the Van on Mon 28 Dec at 11:00.

We’re getting a new kitchen in December

Throughout December the builders will be in to fit our new kitchen. We will still have a Soups and Sharing Platters menu and the bar will be open as usual but as the kitchen will be closed Cinebites is going to take a month’s break. Find out more here, including details of the schedule of work. Thank you for your patience in advance.

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