Greetings, Mr. Bennett. Love your contributions to the LLR. Thanks for everything. Just turned my friends in Toronto on to all your quiet, brilliant work
The great thing is that it lampoons preachers who pull together the most generic life advice message from the most random assortment of verses, stories, and analogies. So anyone should be able to laugh at this, I hope.
Alan Bennett's sketches remain absolutely brilliant after 40 years.
The laughter here is for the uncanny summary of 60% of sunday sermons in non-conformist churches, the endless clichées !
I have driven my family mad over the last 25 years by oft quoting a somewhat abridged version. (My version has "leaving a railway station" rather than a "lady in Piccadilly Circus" but the moral is the same.
I am a smoooooooooth man...
jhunter1163 1 week ago
Greetings, Mr. Bennett. Love your contributions to the LLR. Thanks for everything. Just turned my friends in Toronto on to all your quiet, brilliant work
injamaven 4 months ago
I listen to this just for that woman laughing around 5:40
rederic2004 4 months ago
Brilliant - still jsut as good after 51 years.
Katencantada 8 months ago 2
The great thing is that it lampoons preachers who pull together the most generic life advice message from the most random assortment of verses, stories, and analogies. So anyone should be able to laugh at this, I hope.
the1ringer 9 months ago
Love it!!!
gaylealstrom 10 months ago
Those are real verses in the Bible, but he's given the wrong citations. :p
Webbess10 11 months ago
Comment removed
Webbess10 11 months ago
I love the part about life being like a tin of sardines ("There's always that bit in the corner that you can't get out").
doggerelfan 1 year ago
I remember seeing this in Oxford; it's the only sermon of which I have ever been able to recall any part!
JimTLonW6 1 year ago
Alan Bennett's sketches remain absolutely brilliant after 40 years.
The laughter here is for the uncanny summary of 60% of sunday sermons in non-conformist churches, the endless clichées !
I have driven my family mad over the last 25 years by oft quoting a somewhat abridged version. (My version has "leaving a railway station" rather than a "lady in Piccadilly Circus" but the moral is the same.
rosmeartoo 1 year ago 2
@rosmeartoo
As a kid back in the 70s, I used to sing in the choir in our local church - high church Anglican.
This is absolutely spot on for just about every sermon I squirmed through there.
krakenwave 9 months ago 2
The idiocy flood
Of today drowns out the sounds
Made by great thinkers
Di0genesus 1 year ago
You have to be really old to remember this. I mean really damn old to remember this. I remember this.
gotch09 1 year ago
From years ago, one of my favorite sketches from Beyond the Fringe. Bennett is talking complete rubbish, of course.
tr64yokid 2 years ago 2
A brilliant performance from a brilliant writer!
Arthuriod 2 years ago 3
On a Sunday morning, I am prolly going to be struck by lightning for loving this!!!! Thanks for posting it.
penguinmama88 2 years ago 5
Cutting, intelligent satire, the kind we never hear of any more.
feliciter84 2 years ago 4
look at armando ianucci, stewart lee, chris morris, satire is still very much alive my friend.
saksenaz123456 2 years ago 9