Archives for December 2012

REVIEWS (from original UK performance)

The Guardian Provides context and overview of the storyline.
Published May 19, 2004 just after opening.
Reviewer awarded the performance 4/5 stars.
Read it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2004/may/19/theatre1

An Alternative Review
Not all reviews are love letters for any play or performance, despite their popularity. Here’s the alternative view of The History Boys expressed in a July 2004 Rupert Christiansen review in The Telegraph:

The Telegraph | The Arts Column: why Bennett could try harder
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3621403/The-arts-column-why-Bennett-could-try-harder.html

The Wikipedia entry devoted to Alan Bennett provides a solid overview with complete listing of his works, interesting biographical information and links to relevant materials: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Bennett.

With respect to the characters represented in his work, the entry notes, “In many cases they have met with disappointment in the realm of sex and intimate relationships, largely through tentativeness and a failure to connect with others.” What is explored in The History Boys is no exception to this rule and, in fact, this theme runs parallel to the play’s exploration of the formative nature of school experience and questions raised about education.

Select Additional works of Alan Bennett:
Forty Years On (first play, 1968) The Madness of King George III (he later adapted for film as The Madness of King George)
An Englishman Abroad
Untold Stories (prose collection)
A Question of Attribution
Talking Heads (series of monologues)
A Private Function
Writing Home (essays and diary collection)
The Secret Policeman’s Ball (and The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball)
Prick Up Your Ears (screenplay)

Alan Bennett performances of note:
Beyond The Fringe (with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller at the Edinburgh Festival)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (audiobook)
Winnie The Pooh (audiobook)
The Lady in the Van (BBC Radio 4 with Maggie Smith as Miss Shepherd, a woman who lived in a series of dilapidated vans on Bennett’s driveway for a period of 15 years)

More about Alan Bennett:
It’s alleged he moved from school at Cambridge to Oxford (achieving scholarship to Oxford) in order to follow Ian unrequited love. His degree from Oxford was in History where he remained to teach Medieval History.

Bennett performed in the satirical revue Beyond The Fringe with Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival. Accolades for Beyond The Fringe were the catalyst for his departure from academia at Oxford to pursue his writing career.

When asked in later years whether he was homosexual or heterosexual, Bennett replied, “That’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.”

His distinctive Leeds accent and expressive voice have made him a favored choice for voice work. His performance of the Winnie The Pooh audiobooks is beloved.

In 2010, he was ‘accidentally’ smeared with ice cream by two women while visiting Marks & Spencer. During the act of helping him clean his coat, they lifted 1,500 British pounds he’d just retrieved from the bank. He’s reported to have said the experience left him ‘less likely to believe in the kindness of strangers.’

Alan Bennett’s newest play, People, opened at The National Theatre in London in October 2012. Directed by Nicholas Hytner (who also directed the original History Boys play and movie). People received four of five stars in The Telegraph review by Charles Spencer on November 8, 2012. Read here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9662548/Alan-Bennetts-People-National-Theatre-review.html

The stage version of The History Boys, first performed in 2004 in the UK then in 2006 on Broadway, won multiple awards including the 2005 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2006 Tony Award for Best Play and New York Critics Circle Award. The Broadway run was extended because of the play’s glowing reception.

The film version of The History Boys, released in 2006, was directed by Nicholas Hytner, the original stage director, and features the original cast of the play. Alert: The Wikipedia entry for the film version contains ‘spoilers’ in its thorough description of the storyline and the play version differs from what is presented.

Read more at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_Boys_(film)

British schoolmaster and author Frank McEachron is noted by multiple sources as inspiration for the character of Hector in The History Boys. He wrote Spells for Poets and More Spells and influenced the poet W.H. Auden during the time he taught Auden at Gresham’s School. He is reported to have made students stand on chairs and recite poetry from memory which he called ‘Spells.

His Spells for Poets is delivered in eight parts: ‘Sheer’, ‘Queer’, ‘Fear’, ‘Love’, ‘Death’, ‘Odd’, ‘God’, and ‘Postscript’

Learn more about schoolmaster and author Frank McEachron here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McEachran

Niall Ferguson, currently teaching at Harvard University, is said to have inspired the character of Irwin, the history teacher/coach. A Guardian UK article, published in April 2011, describes Ferguson:

“The Glaswegian-born academic and presenter, 46, has been sending the left into fits of rage ever since he published Empire in 2003 – an elaborate cost-benefit analysis of the British empire, which concluded that it had, on the whole, been a good thing. The character of Irwin in Alan Bennett’s play, The History Boys – a pushy, contrarian teacher who becomes a TV historian – is modeled on Ferguson, and ideological sparring matches with his leftwing critics, one of whom branded his work “startlingly obscene”, have become something of a national sport.”

Read the full article about Niall Ferguson here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/11/niall-ferguson-political-debate-england-america

The Truth Behind The History Boys is a June 2004 ‘platform discussion’ between the playwright Alan Bennett and Nicholas Hytner, director of the original UK production of The History Boys. Bennett provides insight about his inspiration and intentions. In this quote, he talks about his use of “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” in the play and reveals his connection to the character of Posner:

“…I thought how good this would be coming from a boy with a crush on another boy, sung by a boy with an unbroken voice. That took me back to my own childhood, because I was 16 when my voice broke. And so I started to write a play in which there was a boy with an unbroken voice who is longing for his voice to break, feeling quite out of it at school, very much as I did.”

Read the full platform discussion between Bennett and Hytner here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/drama/3619379/The-truth-behind-the-History-Boys.html