Bennett weaves his wistful magic

THE HABIT OF ART, Lowry, Salford

THOSE who seize on this latest Alan Bennett play expecting it to do for the creative spirit what “The History Boys” did for education, may be disappointed.

Yes, in its own way this is just as dazzling and heartfelt, just as compassionate and often just as funny. It just isn’t as flashy.

Well, I say that, but the fact is the structure of “Habit” is about as flashy as Bennett has ever been.

He contrives a get-together between WH Auden and Benjamin Britten when both are near the end of their careers, in the Seventies.

At the same time the play is about a play about the pair in rehearsal — in the National Theatre, in which the actual play was premiered — which allows Bennett to range over themes covering the creative spark, sex, death, biography, the writing of plays and the compromises of production and general ill-regard for playwrights once a script hits a stage — all self-mocking, of course.

It’s a complex set of layers, which Bennett uses as a device to explain the complex relationships involved (and yes, he has one of the explanatory devices — the biographer of both men, Humphrey Carpenter — complaining about the problems of being a theatrical device and about being an actor playing such a device. With me so far?

But forget all this: despite a tendency to wordiness (partly brought about by Bennett’s accurate depiction of Auden’s admiration for his own voice), and a slight slowness of pace in the first half (in which the decrepit, Oxford-dwelling Auden mistakes visiting interviewer Carpenter for a rent boy), National Theatre boss Nicholas Hytner’s production is a fairly constant delight.

This touring cast is extremely strong where it matters: Desmond Barrit appears to have borrowed the vast cardigan originally worn in London by Richard Griffiths as the Falstaffian Auden, a sexual bully with a matter-of-fact attitude to his appetites.

He jumps at the possibility of collaborating with old friend Britten (the cleverly understated Malcolm SInclair) in the superior second half of the evening, in which the two men discuss their careers and Britten’s latest project, the opera “Death in Venice” — which perhaps has subject matter a bit too close to home for the composer.

Selina Cadell as the stage manager and Matthew Cottle as Carpenter add their own admirable touches to a play laced with Bennett’s humour and profundity.