ALAN Bennett’s play The History Boys, first seen at the National Theatre in 2004 and later filmed, launched the careers of several young actors and quickly embedded itself as a favourite Bennett work. It was seen at Bath Theatre Royal in 2007 as part of its first national tour, and again in 2010 and 2011.

Now the theatre’s producing arm has launched an anniversary production, opening in Bath and touring to nine theatres around the UK between now and November. It is directed by Sean Linnen and has been given the thumbs-up by the playwright, who sat in on the final rehearsals.

In the 20 years since it brought the late Richard Griffifths, Stephen Campbell Moore, Frances de la Tour, Dominic Cooper, Russell Tovey, James Corden and Jamie Parker (among others) together to the stage, theatre-going has changed radically. Audience expectations have incorporated the faux-climactic gasps of “reality” television, along with the whoops, squeals and standing ovations that seem a vital accompaniment to every show.

Alan Bennett’s extraordinarily insightful, incisive and craftily witty words really don’t need adornment and amplification, however well it is done. The 2006 film of The History Boys included lots of music, some of it from the period in which the story is set – the early 1980s – and some underlining the messages of Mr Hector, the teacher at the heart of the action.

In this new production, director Linnen has Russell Ditchfield as “composer, arranger and sound designer” and Eamonn O’Dwyer as musical director. The eight boys are all excellent singers and dancers, energetically fulfilling the requirements to do a bit of beat boxing, a capella and torch songs, as well as the music for the very funny French brothel scene. And as we know, there is nothing an audience seems to like better than a musical. I could have called this review The History Boys – The Musical, but that might have been offensive to someone.

In case you don’t know the story, it starts as eight bright young men from an imagined Sheffield grammar school hear that they have achieved sufficiently high marks in their A Levels to apply for entrance to Oxford or Cambridge. Their ambitious, box-ticking, tables-driven headmaster is anxious that they do just that, and he engages a teacher to polish their Oxbridge potential.

The boys, with their frantic hormones and smart-ass rebelliousness, are back in class with their English teacher, the unorthodox, unpredictable and slightly dodgy Mr Hector and the boring but dependable Mrs Lintott. Poster-boy Dakin is moving in on the Headmaster’s secretary while attracting the devotion of classmates. It’s all a bit of a good-humoured battleground … but things are changing. It is this element of the play that has bolstered Bennett’s reputation as a rigorous observer of societal change. Certainly Hector could not be a teacher now.

Comments about the top universities are many and pointed. The way in which the only hopeless Oxbridge candidate gets his place is time for a laugh of recognition.
In the original, it was Hector’s story that broke hearts. In this production, many of the actors (some making their professional debuts) make memorable contributions, but the slick musical scenic changes of over-complicated sets detract from the narrative and blunt the characterisations.

Audiences won’t forget Lewis Cornay’s intensely infatuated Posner in a hurry, nor the ghastly headmaster created by Milo Twomey. Recent graduate Archie Christoph-Allen is a confidently charismatic Dakin.

The History Boys is a great play, and it survives.

GP-W

Photographs by Mark Brenner

The History Boys is at Plymouth Theatre Royal from 17th September for the week.