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A Sentimental Journey
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This is a shocking, replenishing film, not to be missed
Green Zone
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The action and direction are superb and the acting good, but the plot is so pathetic it defies belief
Wonderful - beautifully acted and gloriously funny, particularly Simon Russell Beale and Fiona Shaw
Probably the most important photography exhibition london has ever seen
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Paul Miller, Nichoald Hytner (original direct.
Cast: Desmond Barrit, Elizabeth Bell, Tim Delap, Daniel Fine, Andrew Hawley, Ray Hawley, Thomas Howes, Danny Kirrance, Alton Letto, Sam Phillips, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett
Description: Alan Bennett's comedy about a group of sixth-form boys returns to London's West End. Production recreated by Paul Miller.
Trains: Tube: Leicester Square 
Phone: 0870950 0925
Website: www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk
Crackling with talent: From left, Andrew Hawley as Dakin, Sam Phillips as Lockwood, Danny Kirrane as Timms and Ryan Hawley as Rudge
No one has made such provocative theatrical fun of education, examinations and the relations between teachers and pupils as Alan Bennett in The History Boys. History itself plays a minor role, portrayed as a mysterious stranger who keeps looking in to ask hard questions.
Four seasons after its National Theatre premiere, after long tours at home and abroad, a West End season and Nicholas Hytner's film of the original, The History Boys makes a stronger, more emotional impact in Paul Miller's capable production than ever.
The improvement is primarily due to Desmond Barrit as the shambling Hector, the gayish schoolmaster who puts his heart into inspiring his charges and his hands into the crotches of late-teenage favourites, the entanglements beggaring-belief.
A bow-tied Barrit,with the drooping face of a long-since fallen angel and a voice whose intonations have a discreet hint of Frankie Howerd about them, puts on a hypnotic performance that captures Hector's comic eccentricities and the pathos of his introverted loneliness far better than Richard Griffiths managed in 2004.
Set in a 1980s northern grammar school, where David Mallinson's Headmaster determines to get his post A-level history specialists into Oxbridge, Bennett's play makes little sense realistically.
Organised in short, witty, eloquent scenes, with pupils spending absurdly long periods on general studies with Hector, The History Boys boasts a revue-like format. The cultural atmosphere seems far more 1950s than 1980s: the boys enact in French a hilarious brothel scene, mimic Celia Johnson's refined suffering in Brief Encounter, render a song from Pal Joey, make allusions to Formby and Gracie Fields.
They know Larkin and Auden, feel for Hardy's poetry. They generate intelligent fun. These young actors crackle and pop with talent.
Bennett, in his nostalgic formulation, applauds Hector as a teacher unconcerned about university education, who fires his pupil's imaginations. By contrast, the new history-tutor, Tim Delap's handsome but wooden Irwin, is wedded to materialism and recommends techniques designed to impress Oxbridge examiners. Gay desire unites these two teachers, both of them being closeted and emotionally frozen.
Andrew Hawley's cockily attractive bi-sexual Dakin, the History Boy who unbelievably attempts Irwin's seduction and inspires Daniel Fine's 1950s style sad-to-be gay Jewish class-mate Posner with unrequited passion, may command Bennett's admiration. Yet the beautiful closing scene of this flawed, poignant entertainment reveals an alternative hero.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
A wonderful play which reflected so much of my own observations of pupils and teaching staff over the past thirty years! (Not quite the same but I remember groups of A level Physicists!) I recognised the banter, the challenge, the emotion and contoversy: the dilemma faced by teachers and the confusion our system can bring to youngsters.
The cast seemed so believable and gave massive performances. The glint in Andrew Hawley's eyes easily reached the Grand Circle as did Daniel Fine's whisper - edge of the seat stuff.
Last night's performance was introduced by Alan Bennett - which was the icing on the cake.
As I travelled home and read the programme cover to cover - a first!
Thanks again.
- Phil Hartwell, Harwich, England
Having been a grammar school boy in the 1980s I absolutely hate the History Boys (play and film) despite usually enjoying Alan Bennett's stuff. I think this is because the play is so unrealistic - and also the language and idiom is completely wrong - in fact, more like a northern grammer school of the 1940s/50s (not the 1980s) - precisely Alan Bennett's background. The very idea of 17 year olds being open about being gay - in themselves or teachers - in the 1980s is absurd and probably a fantasy. I'd probably enjoy and believe this play if it was not about my exact experience at a boys' grammar in 1983 - but I know how inaccurate it all is and this spoilt my enjoyment totally. Probably not a good idea to see a play/film so close to one's experience actually.
- Edwin Webb, Greenwich, London
