The History Boys

Dir: Nicholas Hytner

2006

***

I absolutely adore the works of Alan Bennett and I love the script behind The History Boys. I’ve never seen a theatre production of it but if I did I would only want to see one directed by Nicholas Hytner, who is one of the best theatrical directors working today. However, I didn’t love Hytner’s 2006 feature adaptation. I’m not sure it made the transition from stage to film that successfully and there were times when I totally forgot it was an Alan Bennett production, which is a bit of a disaster for an Alan Bennett production. Hytner has made a Bennett film before (The Madness of King George) and his subsequent features have all been successes but, dare I say it, there is something terribly amateurish about The History Boys. I think it is a play that does well from its limitations, that is, it works when the setting is a single classroom. Outside of the theatre and inside a real school it loses a certain something. I think a theatre school can represent any school from any era, even though it is set in 1983, you can watch it and set it in your own school, whether that be 1956 or 2006 you can relate to it. The History Boys: The Movie is 2006 and that is it. It’s not the 2006 most school kids in education that year will recognise, whether they be private or state and it’s also not the school people from 1983 will remember, me being one of them. The cast is superb. Richard Griffiths is perfect as teacher Hector (a character based largely on author and schoolmaster Frank McEachran who taught English at the University of Leipzig and wrote Spells for Poets) and Clive Merrison has never been better as Felix the headmaster. Frances de la Tour is wonderful as Mrs. Lintott and I quite liked Adrian Scarborough as religious PE teacher Mr Wilkes. I do wonder whether Irwin (based on historian Niall Ferguson whose provocative contrarian views ring out in lines such as “an entire career can be built on the trick of contrariness”) should have been played by someone older than the boys themselves but Stephen Campbell Moore is superb. The History Boys themselves were played by Samuel Anderson, Samuel Bernett, Dominic Cooper, James Corden, Sacha Dhawan, Andrew Knott, Russell Tovey and Jamie Parker. The cast is the same as the original that appeared in the first production at the Royal National Theatre, also directed by Hytner. I can’t stand James Corden but everyone is good, including him, with Samuel Bernett and Dominic Cooper certainly topping the list. The script is ace – its Alan Bennet, but I found there to be too much background noise. It was nice to see the cast return for 2016’s The Lady in the Van, I just wish this film had the same approach. I don’t think the ending of the film had the same impact that the theatre production would have had, I liked the film very much, I just think it could have been more….like an Alan Bennet play.