Theatre Royal Bath until 31 August
Words by Melissa Blease
For all manner of reasons (most of them, sadly, nefarious in motivation), there’s been an awful lot of talk lately about what it means “to be British”.
But if there’s one person who perfectly encapsulates the concept of inherent “Britishness”, I reckon it would be much-loved, prolific writer Alan Bennett: a chronicler of the lives of ordinary, foible-laden British people/characters who are candidly honest about their failings in their search for their own identity, let alone the identity thrust upon them according to their place of birth.
The History Boys (adapted for the cinema in 2006, featuring the play’s original cast and directed by the play’s original theatre director Nicholas Hytner) is one of the most perfect examples of the Bennett credo, bringing questions around education, aspiration, class, sexuality and – yes! – various interpretations of the purpose of history into sharp focus, all of them up for debate.
Director Seán Linnen’s revival of this multiple award-winning modern classic has its own historical context, celebrating both the play’s 20th anniversary and Bennett’s 90th birthday. Linnen has made few changes to the original script and remained faithful to the mid-late 1980s setting, too – and the soundtrack playing in the auditorium before curtain-up establishes an immediate sense of time and place with The Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears wafting in on the seat-taking breeze.
There’s much more era-specific musical nostalgia to come: Sound Designer Russell Ditchfield and Musical Director Eamonn O’Dwyer have punctuated the action with original versions of 1980s greatest hits (Duran Duran, OMD, the Specials and more), with an energetic, uplifting version of Adam and the Ants’ Stand and Deliver delivering a showstopping moment and flawless A capella and barbershop-style harmonies thrown in along the way for extra-added verve and sparkle. But I digress…
The A-Level results are in at Cutler’s Grammar School, Sheffield, and eight pupils have aced their grades. Next stop: the Oxbridge exam. Conducting the next stage of their journey: the boys’ beloved maverick English teacher Hector, who’s aided, abetted and eventually thwarted by lacklustre supply teacher Irwin, grades-obsessed, distinctly uncharismatic headmaster Mr Armstrong and – unwittingly, on her part – the cynical but fair Mrs Lintott.
As archetypical eccentric academic Hector, Simon Rouse is, by turn, bombastically commanding and laden with quiet pathos. He’s troubled by all kinds of demons and relies largely on literature for liberation – and it’s the liberating qualities of literature that he wants his pupils to remember about their school days, not the regular, inappropriate gropes and fondles he subjects them too when they’re riding pillion on his motorbike… a penchant that the boys accept as a peculiarity rather than a perversion.
Irwin (Bill Milner), meanwhile, camouflages his own repression/depression battles by adopting a brusque veneer of “teaching is merely a job that must be done” while Mrs Lintott (Gillian Bevan) refuses to sugarcoat either historical fact nor her own beliefs to make them any more palatable to anybody else.
The teachers’ worlds revolve around their brilliant boys – but none of those boys would be quite so brilliant if it weren’t for each other.
Bennett has gifted his characters with strong, almost tangible emotional connections, and the strength of the ensemble cast in this outstanding production bring his remit to vibrant, joyous life: funny, sassy Timms (Teddy Hinde); strongly-opinionated, analytical Lockwood (Curtis Kemlo); studious Akthar (Mahesh Parmar); religiously devout Scripps (Yazdan Qafouri); golf-obsessed Rudge (Ned Costello: almost the mascot of the pack, who it is unspokenly implied will fail to make the grade); quiet, considerate Crowther (Tashinga Bepete); confident, handsome, insouciant Dakin (Archie Christoph-Allen) and Posner (Lewis Cornay): the youngest, wittiest and gentlest of the pack, in love with Dakin, and in love with the idea of love.
It’s Posner/Cornay who delivers one of the best of many memorable lines in the play (‘I’m a Jew. I’m small. I’m homosexual. And I live in Sheffield. I’m fucked”) and it’s Cornay’s voice that shines through in literal terms, too: when he delivers his poignant, beautifully-structured rendition of Lorenz Hart’s Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, you could have heard a pin drop in the captivated audience. But all the boys are captivating in their own way: Dakin/Christoph-Allen’s swagger, Timms/Hinde’s sharp wit, Scripps/Qafouri’s quiet wisdom – we get to know them all so well that, by the time we reach the drama’s bittersweet denouement and Mrs Lintott has given us a revealing glimpse into what the futures of our leading men held, their fates feel real and personal, as though we’re reading their diaries.
The History Boys is a timepiece that takes us back to the days when the benefits of a university education were proven and tangible, the importance of art and literature weren’t called into question in schools and grooming was a word associated only with barbers and horses; the good old days… or darker times? As Irwin says, “This is history. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters”.
For those of a certain vintage, The History Boys may make you yearn to be young again, with the world at your feet and the opportunity to right all manner of wrongs in your grasp. For those who are poised to embark on their own age of discovery, few teachers can guide you through the turbulent morass like Alan Bennett can.
Main Image: Lewis Cornay as Posner, Yazdan Qafouri as Scripps, Tashinga Bepete as Crowther, Archie Christoph-Allen as Dakin, Ned Costello as Rudge, Curtis Kemlo as Lockwood, Teddy Hinde as Timms and Mahesh Parmar as Akthar in The History Boys
Photo credit: Marc Brenner