Locked-down watching

Panic must have set in at the BBC in April. How to fill the schedules in a new world of social distancing, empty stadia and shut-up shops? Re-runs? Zoom extravaganzas? And yes, even better, monologues!

Culture watching Sarah Allen

Talking Heads was the perfect lockdown solution, taking ten award-winning monologues from the 1980s and 90s, adding well-known but unoccupied actors and directors (Imelda Staunton, Tamsin Greig and Martin Freeman, amongst others), and borrowing the vacant EastEnders set. The final touch was to persuade national treasure Alan Bennett to write another two scripts – bingo! More than six hours of primetime TV.