The History Boys by Alan Bennett Reviewed
The Script Behind the Sensational National Theatre Production
In Alan Bennett's The History Boys, what it means to teach and to be taught are explored to the backdrop of a 1980s grammar school as a group of intelligent, brash and boisterous sixth-formers are prepared for their Oxbridge exams, exposing staff-room rivalries, sexual politics and questions about the move from innocence to experience in the greater context of life.
The Contentious Plot of Alan Bennett's The History Boys
Mature themes run throughout Alan Bennett's National Theatre hit, such as the fact that, in turn, each of the History Boys (with the exception of the youngest, Posner, who is only 17) submits themselves to being groped by Hector, their General Studies teacher, chiefly because they feel sorry for him.
"A grope's a grope," as teacher Mrs. Lintott says when this little revelation comes out, and indeed that's how the play deals with the issue: it's wrong, it doesn't condone it, but contextually it is part of a much greater discussion being put forward by Alan Bennett about the true education one receives in life, and the question of who is really abusing who creeps in as the young adults turn the tables on the teachers.
Indeed, The History Boys confronts sexuality head-on, from effeminate Posner who is in love with heartthrob and fellow student Dakin, to Dakin's infatuation and attempted conquest of their substitute History teacher, Irwin, who represents the flashy and unknown, which, in many ways, is Alan Bennett's commentary on how education for Higher Learning was, at the time, all style with very little substance, and possibly still is.
What this publication of The History Boys serves to do very well is contextualise the play by providing a foreword from writer Alan Bennett that talks about his own experience as an Oxbridge applicant, his semi-autobiographical characterization as Posner (although there are glimmers of his personality in all the characters) and how he had attempted to demonstrate four styles of teaching in The History Boys.
These approaches include Hector's verbose and emotional response to events in The History Boys, Mrs. Lintott's adherence to simple facts, Irwin's manipulation of those facts to argue dispassionate points, and the Headmaster's complete disregard for actual education in favour of results, something which Alan Bennett clearly abhors.
The Problem of Timing in Alan Benntt's The History Boys
As previously mentioned, this incarnation of the National Theatre script contains a foreword by Alan Bennett and in that foreword the writer answers what many critics have levelled as the chief problem with the play: that it contains anachronisms and, apart from very little pop culture, can't really fix itself to the 1980's Yorkshire setting.
Simply, Alan Bennett doesn't care. The writer makes it expressly clear that The History Boys was always meant to be a thematic piece, and that the setting was merely incidental to the work. As such, Bennett attempts to push aside other criticisms such as that 18 year-old students in the 1980's would not have accepted homosexuality so readily, either from teachers or from fellow pupils.
In this regard, Bennett's explanation doesn't entirely hold water. It would be a rare day to find students as fluent at French, as capable of switching from historical debate to referencing landmark poetry of the era and singing a rousing snippet of opera whilst also finding time to pursue sexual conquests aplenty, but that is what we are given in The History Boys.
Yet at the same time, Alan Bennett reminds his audience that The History Boys isn't meant to be real. It is commentary, satire and one might even profess it to be a calculated attack on the state of the teaching profession, and at all of these The History Boys is a riotous success, so what does not add up in the play is easily forgiven for the verbal dexterity and poignant punch of what does.
The History Boys National Theatre Script a Towering Success for Alan Bennett
In the search for absolute historical truth, one fact remains about Alan Bennett's play as performed first at the National Theatre before having a round-the-world tour, and that is that The History Boys knows itself implicitly and fulfills on every promise it makes, and though it raises more questions than it answers, it is essentially very gratifying, thought-provoking and riotously funny, and so is this edition of the script and the illuminating foreword from writer Alan Bennett that goes with it.
(Publisher: Faber & Faber; Publish Date: July 2004; ISBN-10: 0571224644; ISBN-13: 978-0571224647; Paperback Edition: 144 Pages)
The History Boys by Alan Bennett
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Reading & Literature
Latest Articles