A new Alan Bennett play is an event. This is especially true since 2004’s The History Boys, one of the most commercially successful achievements of the National Theatre — a delicious fusion of politics, philosophy and comedy, with a healthy dash of melodrama.
The Habit of Art is less straightforwardly rewarding. It’s funny, and sometimes brilliantly so, but strangely uninvolving. Although Bennett savours his material, he doesn’t make it sing.

His centrepiece is a neatly crafted encounter between composer Benjamin Britten and poet WH Auden in 1972. Britten’s work on his new opera Death in Venice has stalled; Auden may be able to help. The pair, creative collaborators in the Thirties, had almost nothing to do with each other after the late Forties, but the idea of their meeting is pregnant with possibilities.

Bennett frames the incident theatrically: we are backstage during rehearsals for a drama that deals with the two men’s reunion. So, Richard Griffiths is crabby Fitz, an actor playing Auden. Alex Jennings with beautiful precision incarnates Britten through the actor who plays him, as well as playing an Oxford college servant unsettled by Auden’s personal habits, which include a taste for rent boys and an enthusiasm for pissing in the sink.

The squalor of Auden’s habitat is perfectly conveyed by Bob Crowley’s set, which could be straight off How Clean Is Your House? Meanwhile our perspective on proceedings is shaped by Humphrey Carpenter (Adrian Scarborough, underused), who will go on to write biographies of both men.

Bennett continues his concern with the relationship between homosexuality and creativity. Sexual misunderstandings provide moments of ripe humour. The words “But I’m with the BBC” can never have seemed so risible. Yet opulent expectations mean comedy is found in places where in truth it is sparse.

Arguably more important here is the elaborate process by which theatre is brought to life.
Frances de la Tour delights as the tenacious stage manager, supervising the company as it unpacks its baggage (both literally and metaphorically) and chaperoning a crowd of talking props.

Fundamentally, though, this is a cerebral and self-referential play. Bennett proffers some wonderful lines. The performances are proficient, and Nicholas Hytner’s direction is fluid. However, lurking awkwardly inside this rather contrived creation is a different, more emotionally resonant play. It’s a shame that it’s been submerged.

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