Talk:The Lady in the Van

American-British film

Currently this is described as an "American-British" film in the lead sentence. Is this because Tri-Star was the backing distributor? The current reference [1] does not support the American-British statement. Would "American-backed British film" be more appropriate? In all other respects, this is a British film, with British actors, playing British characters. Group29 (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Feel free to change it back to British. I accepted the IP's source as supporting the dual nationality, but honestly it's confusing at best. I certainly wouldn't go for "American-backed British film"; I don't think I've ever seen it before in the infobox of a film.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Miss Shepherd's surname

Although throughout the various versions of the 'Lady in the Van' the subject has always been referred to as 'Miss Shepherd', her actual surname was Sheppard. It can be seen written as such twice on her London Freedom Pass in this scan. I double-checked by looking at the Register of Deaths and found no Mary Shepherd who had died in 1989 in Camden, but there is a Mary Teresa Sheppard who died in the second quarter of 1989. It seems to have been a deliberate decision by Alan Bennett as her name is always spelled 'Shepherd' in the various versions of 'The Lady in the Van', but I would have thought that one cannot actually write about the real Lady in the Van without noting that her name was not the one given in the play/book/essay/film. Sam Blacketer (talk) 22:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)