Programme extract for The Habit of Art

From Alan Bennett's article in the programme for The Habit of Art:
I first heard WH Auden's voice in Exeter College hall at Oxford some time in 1955. The lower end of the scholars' table where I was sitting was only a yard or two from High Table where the dons dined and, hearing those harsh quacking tones without knowing whose they were, I said to my neighbour it sounded like the voice of the devil. Someone better informed put me right: it was Auden, at that time still with blondish hair and the face yet to go under the harrow.

The illustrated programme for The Habit of Art, price £3.00, will be available for sale from 5 November, from the Lyttelton Bookstall, the NT Bookshop and ushers at performance times. It contains four exclusive articles: Alan Bennett writes about the play's background and its real-life characters; Patrick Garland recalls first meeting WH Auden as a student at Oxford, and later; Michael Berkeley gives his memories of his godfather, Benjamin Britten; and Libby Purves remembers her friend and colleague, Humphrey Carpenter. Auden's poem ‘September 1, 1939'; plus who's who in the company and Johan Persson's photographs of them in rehearsal complete an unmissable programme.

Programme sales help support the work of the National Theatre.