» Review: History Boys
You see the name Alan Bennett and there is immediately a level of expectation. It’s hardly surprising – he is an immense talent, intellectual, social commentator and wit. He is also an entertainer, and as such he is brilliantly positioned to convey ideas and ideals.
The History Boys is a play about both. At the centre is Hector, the idealist teacher. Hector cares more about the boy’s intellectual and emotional growth than he does about them passing exams. The boys love Hector and, although they perhaps do not see his real motivation, they respect his approach to learning and revel in his colourful methods.
The headmaster has other ideas; obsessed with leagues, he wants Oxbridge success and employs a young academic, Irwin, as tutor. It is, however, not that simple; Hector is homosexual and as it turns out, so is Irwin. Of course the adolescent boys are a heaving mass of hormonal change. Posner is awakening to his own homosexuality and is brilliantly and movingly played in this revival by James Byng. He also leads most of the well placed songs with a voice like gold. Dakin, the school sex god played by Kyle Redmond-Jones, is screwing the headmaster’s secretary but is also aware that he has sexual power over men too, and he is prepared to exercise that power. Rob Delaney as Scripps has God. He has God pinned down, I should say. All eight young actors are excellent but these three are sensational.
Gerard Murphy comes to the part Richard Griffiths made his own and brings to it a vulnerability and sadness that outweighs any bluster and pomposity. Truly tragic, his Hector is a deeply moving portrayal of a man bound into marriage by convention, into teaching by necessity, and who as a result is unfulfilled sexually and intellectually. Ben Lambert is excellent as Irwin, the closeted tutor, not ready to face his own sexuality.
Amongst the testosterone is Mrs Lintott. Penelope Beaumont’s performance is superbly measured, all-seeing and never surprised by the antics of the boys or the male staff, and she is utterly dismissive of the appalling headmaster played with a chilling lack of heart by Thomas Wheatley.
Bennett turns his audience inside out with arguments and counter arguments. The value of art, the value of education and certainly the value of exams are all brought into question. But perhaps beneath all this is the most important question: how we value each other as human beings. In the end the staff and boys alike are equally cruel, equally ruthless and equally vulnerable, too. The great talent is that Bennett can show us this whilst entertaining us.
Theatre Royal Brighton 29 March
5/5
Andrew Kay
