The Lady in the Van is an upcoming 2015 British drama film adapted by Alan Bennett from his 1999 hit West End play of the same name, which was nominated at the 2000 Olivier Awards for Play of the Year. It is directed by Nicholas Hytner, who directed the original production at the Queen's Theatre in London. Starring Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings, it tells the true story about an elderly woman called Mary Shepherd who lived in a battered car on the driveway of the writer Alan Bennett for 15 years. Maggie Smith has played Miss Shepherd twice before, in the original 1999 theatrical production, which scored her a Best Actress nomination at the 2000 Olivier Awards, and in a 2009 Radio 4 adaptation. The Lady in the Van tells the real life story of Alan Bennett's strained friendship with Miss Mary Shepherd, an eccentric homeless woman whom Bennett befriended in the Seventies before allowing her to temporarily park her Bedford van in the driveway of his Camden home. She stayed there for 15 yea...