"A Chip in the Sugar" is a dramatic monologue written by Alan Bennett in 1987 for television, as part of his Talking Heads series for the BBC.
The series became very popular, moving onto BBC Radio, international theatre, becoming one of the best-selling audio book releases of all time and included as part of both the A-level and English syllabus.
[1] It was the first episode of the first series of Talking Heads and the only one which featured Alan Bennett as an actor.
Middle-aged Graham Whittaker, a repressed homosexual with a history of mental health issues, finds life becoming complicated as his mother or "Mam", Vera Whittaker, with whom he still lives, reunites with an old flame named Frank Turnbull.
Her hopes of happiness are destroyed, but a safe, stultifying "normality" has been restored in the existence of Graham and his mother.