THE HISTORY BOYS

THE HISTORY BOYS

Sell a Door Theatre Company at the Arts Theatre Cambridge

09.07.2015

Hector's trusty Triumph hangs ominously over the Sheffield classroom in Libby Watson's touring set – flanked by two cartoonish signs: You Are Here, and Hold On Tight.

Otherwise the design is unremarkable, stackable furniture, bookshelves shading into kitchen area [for the staffroom], posters collaged over the walls and large double doors witness to the original Edwardian architecture.

The maverick English teacher may lock the doors, but passers-by can still peer in, variously shocked, amused, intrigued by the goings on.

Kate Saxon's production catches the mood of secrecy and complicity. The play itself is an uneasy mix of styles and periods, in an educational landscape where league tables and open scholarships are mentioned in the same breath, foolscap paper is still in the stationery cupboard, Porter and Piaf are on the playlist with the Eurythmics and the Smiths [“our crap”] - the stunningly appropriate “when the leather runs smooth on the passenger seat” …

An excellent cast, especially the staff. Richard Hope is a believably extravagant Hector, relishing the opportunities for showing off with Shakespeare, but touching too in his moments of self-doubt.

A pompous, jobsworth Headmaster from Christopher Ettridge, a lovely Lintott from Susan Twist. We even see [rather too much of] the femme fatale Fiona [Melody Brown]. Not so sure about Mark Field's Irwin; a difficult duo to pull off, the young student teacher and the tv historian.

The boys a mixed bag – some, like David Young's “thick sod” Rudge a little mature, even from the circle. But Kedar Williams-Stirling has a compelling presence as the insolent chancer Dakin, Patrick MacNamee is totally convincing as Lockwood, and Steven Roberts, his voice, like the playwright's at that age, still with treble overtones, is a superb Posner, singing the old songs, nervously snubbing the Drummer Hodge hand of friendship, looking longingly on as Dakin lingers with Irwin …

A beautifully crafted production of a great play, with something to say to everyone, whether new bugs in the Cutlers classroom or “those returning”, as the old school hymn, has it “more faithful than before”.

THE HISTORY BOYS

THE HISTORY BOYS

at Colchester Mercury

23.05.13

The sixth show of the Made In Colchester season, and it's a superbly realised production of Alan Bennett's unlikely hit of 2004.

That improbable Sheffield Grammar now has an improbable Latin song, though the backdrop photograph suggests an institution founded, like the real King Ted's, in 1905.

Ignatius Anthony is entirely believable as the geographer from Hull, the Head obsessed with league tables and scholarships, who twice savagely dismisses art, literature, history and other such silliness. Mind you, he clearly has staffing problems.

Mrs Lintott [Liza Sadovy] is a traditionalist, thorough but dull, prone to cynical outbursts. The callow supply teacher he drafts in to help coach the Oxbridge hopefuls of the title is keen but woefully inexperienced. And law-unto-himself Hector is a liability, his lessons "not curriculum-directed at all …".

As young Irwin, Freddie Machin catches the social ineptitude behind the academic carapace. He is less convincing, perhaps, later in life, as the spin doctor or the TV historian, based, it is surmised, on Niall Ferguson.

Stephen Ley's Hector is a shambling figure, given to florid histrionics, but clearly a much-loved inspiration to the boys, despite his lack of focus and his predatory fumblings. The subtext, as elsewhere, is elegantly suggested: his Drummer Hodge dialogue with Posner, a hand proffered and almost taken, suggests a deeper "diffidence or shyness" [The Mikado, as Hector might have pointed out in different circumstances]. His numbness when arraigned by Armstrong is deeply moving.

Daniel Buckroyd's staging has no pounding Eighties score, no fancy filmed inserts. Instead we have Scripps vamping till ready, and just the two slides: the school and Rievaulx. Buckroyd himself plays the Director in the film, though as a voice off. There is a simple revolve, smoothly revealing the classroom, its walls distressed with names from desktops, and, as necessary, the Head's study, the staffroom, a corridor with pigeon-holes.

The music is excellently done. Supervised by Richard Reeday, the segues reference the songs and the artistes from the script. Scripps [Max Gallagher], a pale, earnest Anglican, plays the piano, notably for Posner, the odd boy out, denizen of dictionary corner, Hector's greatest fan, the only loser in the game of life, brilliantly played by Philip Labey. His "love and understand me" is laden with longing, his Sing As We Go was greeted on the first night with awed silence.

All the boys inhabit their roles with sincerity and enthusiasm – Oliver Llewellyn-Jenkins' rugger-mad Rudge, Scott Arthur's cocky Dakin, James Dryden – in his professional début – as the life-and-soul Timms.

And the classroom scenes feel natural and improvised. The "tosh", the old movies, the French class, the shared passions. Bennett's school is a strange mixture of the modern and the Secondary Modern – the Headmaster would surely be harder on uniform infringements than Hector – and the wide cultural sweep is symbolised by Timms' Nike bag and Posner's satchel. The original play is very long, but I still miss many of those lost lines [Mrs Lintott particularly pruned], the Seventh Veil and the knock at the door …

But this is an affectionate production, faithful to the spirit of the piece, and unusually respectful of the playwright's words and intentions – the sexual connotations of Poland, the handwriting compared, the subjunctive mood, history rattling over the points ...