A sale? Why not? Release all your wonderful treasures onto the open market and they are there for everyone to enjoy. It's a kind of emancipation, a setting them free to range the world... a saleroom here, an exhibition there; art, Lady Stacpoole, is a rover.

People spoil things; there are so many of them and the last thing one wants is them traipsing through one's house. But with the park a jungle and a bath on the billiard table, what is one to do? Dorothy wonders if an attic sale could be a solution.

People premieres at the National Theatre, London, in October 2012.

As with Alan Bennett's previous two plays, The History Boys and The Habit of Art, People will open in the Lyttelton Theatre in a production directed by the National's artistic director Nicholas Hytner.

- How're you doing?

- Not sure.

- Well why don't you get on the mobile to your dick and find out.