In a smart London square Alan Bennett's garden accidentally became the resting place of a mildly insane Miss Shepherd, resident of a multi-coloured and stinking van.

She gave her benign and reluctant unpaid landlord no thanks, plenty of lashes to his conscience – and stayed 15 years.

Bennett turned this extraordinary story into a vivid memoir and then adapted it for the stage. Its key device is splitting Bennett into two characters, one to perform his actions and the other to speak his thoughts.

The thinking – and writing – Bennett is played with uncanny precision by Ian Byfield. He has Bennett's voice and gloo-my demeanour to perfection. And, of course, he is wryly funny and mildly tormented throughout.

Miss Shepherd, played by an inspired Jeanne O'Rourke, is his garrulous tormentor. From her layers of filthy clothes and repellent habits she deals out liberal doses of fuzzy logic. The contrast between her and Bennett is one of the many delights of the evening.

The neighbours – alarmed by Miss Shep-herd's van, presence, the very idea of her – are compactly represented by Rufus and Pauline, brittle hypocrites and snobs sharply played by Nigel Town and Diane Sibley.
Kristina Boothroyd plays a simpering social worker whose platitudes the second Bennett character (Alistair Cheetham) receives like an attack of migraine.

Bennett's ailing mother (Kathleen Smith) enriches the idea of aged, frail women and the beautiful compassion that Bennett extends, selflessly and self-effacingly, to them.

This is an unmissable production by the Thespians.