Alan Bennett has shared how he has had to give up cycling and struggles to climb stairs - but refuses to have a stairlift for 'aesthetic reasons'. The playwright, 86, underwent open-heart surgery in 2019 and has shared his declining health in his annual diary of the year. Mr Bennett, who wrote TV's Talking Heads, says he has struggled with the stairs at his home Primrose Hill, London ever since several falls put him off his lifelong love of cycling. Alan Bennett, 86, has revealed his deteriorating health has put him off cycling and left him struggling to take the stairs at his Primrose Hill home, but there will be no stairlifts installed 'for aesthetic reasons'