Eighteen years ago I passed up the opportunity to watch The History Boys in its Broadway debut run and instead opted for Beauty and The Beast. I know.
While the latter did have the great Donny Osmond as Gaston and one of the best revolving stages I have ever seen (does that make it a bit better?) it's a decision that has niggled me ever since.
Now, as The History Boys marks its 20th year, we both finally got to come of age with its arrival at Truro’s Hall for Cornwall this week - and without an eight-hour flight to get there (even factoring in the end of school holiday Cornish traffic).
The play tells the story of eight scholarship students, returning to school after their A-levels for coaching on how to get into Oxford and Cambridge to study history.
Through their studies and interactions with teachers, secrets are revealed on all sides.
The winner of 30 major awards, and voted The Nation's Favourite Play in 2013, The History Boys is from the incredible mind of revered playwright Alan Bennett.
Some of his best-known works include The Madness of George III (1991) and the collection of TV monologues Talking Heads in 1988 – subsequently known to a generation of A-level and GCSE English Literature students – while more recently the 2015 film The Lady in the Van with Dame Maggie Smith brought him to the attention of a new audience.
One thing that characterises all of Bennett’s works, however, is his dry wit and biting commentary on society and The Establishment – in particular their pretensions and hypocrisies.
It is the education system that is put under the microscope for this production, which mirrors Bennett’s own life.
Born in Leeds, he attended Oxford University, where he studied history and performed with the Oxford Revue. He stayed on as a lecturer for a while, before a collaboration with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook for the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe, at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival, brought him instant fame and shaped the rest of his career.
Meanwhile, The History Boys is set in a fictional grammar school ‘up north’, in Sheffield during the 1980s – characterised by the music from the era playing between each scene.
Unusually for a review, I found the scene changes a really enjoyable part of the show. The double-sided set rotates to change from inside the classroom to outside, while various desks, chairs and a piano are wheeled in and out as needed. This is all done by the cast and there’s no attempt to hide what’s happening – they’re dancing to the music while doing it, and it really keeps the energy high.
The show opens with an a cappella version of John Parr’s St Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion), sung by the cast. It’s an upbeat start, but the lyrics – “Growin' up, you don't see the writing on the wall; Passin' by, movin' straight ahead, you knew it all; But maybe sometime if you feel the pain; You'll find you're all alone, everything has changed” – foreshadow what’s to come.
It’s the first of a number of musical interludes in the play, many of which come from the beautiful singing voice of Lewis Cornay as one of the students, Posner, who goes through a journey of self-acceptance over the course of the show. His rendition of Ella Fitzgerald’s Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered is particularly touching.
Many of the songs are accompanied simply by a piano, played live by Yazdan Qafouri who takes the role of fellow student Scripps.
It’s a talented cast across the board, with all your typical classroom characters depicted – from the floppy-haired player who has the looks and gets the girls in Dakin (played to perfection by Archie Christoph-Allen) to the slightly-without-hope but goes on to surprise everyone Rudge (Ned Costello).
The ‘boys’ are joined by four teaching staff – the league table driven headmaster (Milo Twomey), the much-loved and old school English and general studies teacher Hector (Simon Rouse), whose popularity covers up for more than it probably should, and the young, freshly qualified Irwin, brought in to coach the students on how to pass their Oxbridge entrance exams, and whose methods aren’t initially well-received.
The only female character in the male-heavy storyline is history teacher Mrs Lintott, performed by Gillian Bevan – best known on TV for playing consultant Elliot Hope’s wife Gina in Holby City, in its assisted dying storyline that won critical acclaim, and later four series of Channel 4 Teachers as headteacher Claire Hunter.
Despite being the sole feminine presence, Mrs Lintott is actually the voice of reason in the school – with Bennett actually a major advocate for women.
Indeed, while the character doesn’t get her own inner monologue (a technique used throughout the play to interject both background and personal thoughts to the main action) until quite late into the show – as she so pithily points out to the audience – when her voice is finally unleashed this continues into the main dialogue also.
“Can you, for a moment, imagine how dispiriting it is to teach five centuries of masculine ineptitude?” she declares to the dumb-struck males in front of her.
As with most of Bennett’s works, there are multiple layers to The History Boys and what you take home from it will depend on what you bring to the table to begin with.
There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, whatever your background, however. The infamous ‘French boudoir’ scene (performed almost entirely in the language of the country, no less – the visual comedy thankfully saving those of us scrabbling to recall the basics of our GCSE French) and a simply wonderful depiction of a scene from Brief Encounter were particular highlights for me.
So how do you define history? ‘It’s just one f**king thing after another…’
- The History Boys runs at the Hall for Cornwall until this Saturday, September 7, with evening performances starting at 7.30pm and additional 2.30pm matinees on Thursday and Saturday. Tickets start at £15.
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