Alan Bennett’s Killing Time is a sharp, darkly comic novella set within the confines of Hill Topp House, a superior council-run care home for the elderly. As expected from Bennett, this is a story filled with wit, understated melancholy, and an unflinching gaze at the indignities of ageing. At around 100 pages (dependent on the edition), it is a brief but potent work, blending the absurdities of institutional life with the grim realities of decline, all against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Presided over by the formidable Mrs McBryde, Hill Topp House is home to a wonderfully eccentric cast of characters. Among them is Mr Peckover, an archaeologist with grand delusions; Phyllis, the relentless knitter; Mr Cresswell, the flamboyant ex-cruise ship hairdresser; and Mrs Foss, a schemer with an enterprising spirit. With their quirks and grievances, these residents bring life to the home, though always under the shadow of an inevitable fate.
Bennett’s signature observational humour is at its best here. His characters, while exaggerated, feel authentic, their interactions laced with deadpan wit and a keen understanding of human behaviour. A recurring motif is the casual and often transactional nature of relationships within the home—alliances formed and broken over missing clothing, control of the remote, or the distribution of dry sherry. Even the macabre realities of ageing, from incontinence to cognitive decline, are treated with Bennett’s characteristic blend of empathy and humour.
However, Killing Time is far from a cosy tale of eccentric pensioners navigating old age with wry amusement. The story is unsentimental, at times even brutal in its depiction of life in a care home. The arrival of Covid-19 brings with it not just illness and death but also disruption to the carefully maintained order of the home. As staff fall ill and rules are relaxed, a quiet revolution takes place. Residents seize unexpected freedoms—some small, some profound—while others simply fade away, their absences noted with a resigned shrug.
One of the most striking aspects of the novella is how it captures the way identity erodes in old age. The residents of Hill Topp House are defined by their pasts, yet those pasts feel increasingly distant. When Miss Rathbone finally shares a long-held secret, it lands not with the drama one might expect but with a muted acceptance, as though it belongs to someone else entirely. This detachment is one of the novella’s most poignant themes—Bennett understands that ageing is not just a process of physical decline but also of memory slipping away, of becoming a relic of a life once lived.
For all its humour, Killing Time is also a deeply sobering work. There is no neat resolution, no grand epiphany. Instead, Bennett offers a series of sharply observed moments, small victories and inevitable losses. It is a reminder that old age is neither a grand adventure nor a dignified farewell—it is, in many ways, just the slow passing of time. A geriatric Lord of the Flies, indeed, but with all the wit and wisdom expected from one of Britain’s finest writers.
Reviewer: Chris Reed
Allen & Unwin